AN    INTRODUCTION    TO 
PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS 


AN    INTRODUCTION  TO 
PROTESTANT    DOGMATICS 


DR.   P.  LOBSTEIN 

PROFESSOR  OF  THEOLOGY   IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  STRASSBURG 


.3utI)ort3fU  ^Translation 

FROM    THE    ORIGINAL    FRENCH   EDITION 

BY 

ARTHUR   MAXSON  SMITH,  PH.D. 


PUBLISHED    BY    THE   TRANSLATOR 
PRINTED   AT   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  CHICAGO   PRESS 


Copyright,  1902 
By  ARTHUR  MAXSON  SMITH 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 

THE  justification  for  the  translation  of  Lob- 
stein's  Introduction  a  la  dogmatique  protestante,  pre- 
sented herewith,  is  the  timeliness  of  the  book  in 
our  present  condition  of  theological  unrest.  It 
is  conceded  by  eminent  scholars  who  are  familiar 
with  the  book  that  it  stands  quite  alone  in  its 
orderly,  scientific  presentation  of  theological 
material,  while  it  combines,  in  a  unique  manner, 
the  evangelical  interests  and  the  scientific  effort 
of  the  new  theology,  thus  constituting  a  decisive 
contribution  to  the  religious  world.  Further 
justification  for  presenting  the  book  to  the  con- 
sideration of  theologians  and  ministers  is  the 
fact  that  it  cannot  fail  to  bring  these  two  classes 
of  sincere  workers  into  closer  union  and  sym- 
pathy. There  is  today  a  very  general,  lamenta- 
ble, and,  unless  corrected,  fatal,  separation  be- 
tween the  Protestant  church,  represented  by  the 
practical  pastor,  and  the  Protestant  theological 
seminary,  represented  by  the  theological  critic 
and  teacher.  The  reason  for  this  is,  I  think, 
perfectly  plain.  The  ministerial  ranks  are  ne- 
cessarily dominated  by  the  theology  of  pastors 
who,  through  years  of  devoted  and  eminent  ser- 
vice, have  justly  attained  positions  of  leadership 


2G222S7 


vi  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

in  their  respective  denominations.  But  in  very 
recent  years  the  method  of  theological  inquiry  has 
undergone  radical  changes,  amounting  to  abso- 
lute reversal.  Anyone  in  sympathy  with  the 
modern  method  of  procedure,  applied  to  all 
departments  of  investigation,  cannot  find  it  pos- 
sible to  indorse  unqualifiedly  the  old  method 
common  to  mediaeval  science,  philosophy,  and 
theology,  and  still  retained,  in  some  degree,  by 
theology.  That  the  old,  deductive,  method  has 
persisted  and  still  continues  in  some  schools  of 
theological  thought,  while  in  all  other  depart- 
ments it  has  yielded  to  the  modern  inductive 
method,  is,  rightly  understood,  one  of  the 
greatest  possible  tributes  to  the  value  of  religion 
to  human  life.  But  because  the  method  is  chan- 
ging, many  of  the  advocates  of  the  old  theology 
fear  that  the  substance  and  essentials  of  Christian 
truth  are  also  being  swept  aside,  and  just  there, 
precisely,  is  the  gist  of  the  problem  of  the  separa- 
tion between  churches  and  theological  seminaries 
—  a  separation  which  is  not  only  fatal  to  both, 
but  which,  because  of  the  value  attached  to 
religious  truth  by  both  sides,  is  maintained  with 
an  insistence  too  often  amounting  to  harsh  criti- 
cism and  bitter  feeling  quite  out  of  keeping  with 
the  fundamental  rule  of  Christianity,  but  called 
forth  simply  because  what  every  believer  con- 
siders the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Chris- 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE  vii 

tianity  mean  so  much  to  him.  Our  modern  gen- 
eral chaos  of  theology,  and  this  breach  between 
churches  and  seminaries  on  account  of  certain 
absolutely  irreconcilable  antinomies  in  method 
between  the  old  and  the  new  theology  (affecting 
in  no  instance  the  essentials  of  Christianity,  but 
supposed  by  those  ignorant  of  the  task  of  the 
new  theology  to  affect  all  the  essentials),  are, 
I  believe,  directly  responsible  for  the  universally 
recognized  and  astonishingly  rapid  loss  of  influ- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  church.  It  is  absurd  to 
suppose  that  the  theological  school  can  pros- 
per without  the  church  or  that  the  church  can 
prosper  without  the  theological  school  to  keep 
prospective  ministers  in  sympathy  with  the  spirit 
and  methods  of  the  times.  This  practical  sym- 
pathy and  co-operation  with  the  culture  and 
methods  of  the  times  is  the  only  way  in  which 
the  church  can  make  a  successful  appeal  to 
any  given  age.  It  was  the  method  adopted 
by  Jesus,  by  his  disciples,  and  by  the  epoch- 
making  religious  leaders  of  every  age.  That 
last  statement  will  be  challenged,  of  course,  but 
only  by  those  who  forget  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  method  of  presentation  and  the  material 
presented  ;  who  forget  that  Jesus  used  the  ter- 
minology and  the  generally  accepted  ideas  of 
Judaism  as  the  social  and  intellectual  vehicles 
for  his  message ;  who  forget  that  Paul's  theology 


Viii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

has  the  most  rigid  bonds  of  relationship  and 
union  with  the  social  and  philosophical  ideas  of 
his  time.  The  function  of  the  theological  semi- 
nary is  not  to  make  Christians,  but  to  put  the 
Christian  possession  of  prospective  ministers  in 
such  form  that  there  will  be  no  barrier  between 
the  minister  and  the  educated  man  of  his  time. 
Without  such  a  service  on  the  part  of  the  theo- 
logical school  the  church  will  not  only  lose 
ground  rapidly,  but  will  gradually  degenerate 
into  all  manner  of  schisms  and  sects,  dissipating 
her  energy  in  religious  fads  and  makeshifts  and 
free-lanceism. 

This  break  between  the  theological  school  and 
the  church,  in  Protestant  ranks,  has  another  most 
serious  result.  It  forces  young  men  of  the  fine 
equipment  and  scientific  training  of  the  modern 
college  either  to  give  up  all  hope  and  purpose  of 
entering  the  ministry  or  to  prepare  for  it  with  the 
assured  prospect  of  critical  opposition,  with  the 
only  alternative  of  keeping  the  peace  by  doubtful 
and  equivocal  compromise  with  their  own  sense 
of  manly  independence.  Instead  of  entering 
joyfully  and  enthusiastically  inio  the  practical 
work  of  their  ministry,  they  must  go  with  the 
fear  that  some  older  and  wiser  pastoral  brother 
may  proclaim  them  "unorthodox,"  summon  a 
council,  examine,  pass  judgment.  Inviting  out- 
look! But  it  cuts  both  ways.  If  the  church, 


TRANSLATORS  PREFACE  IX 

under  the  tutelage  of  an  old  theology,  or  of  any 
theology,  is  willing  to  deny  to  her  young  ministers 
their  right  to  do  their  own  thinking,  then  she 
must  be  resigned  to  young  ministers  who  do 
not  know  how  to  think,  or  who,  because  they 
do  know  how,  but  are  not  granted  their  free- 
dom, lose  their  enthusiasm  and  joyin  the  serv- 
ice that  ought  to  be  the  most  exalted  and  joy- 
ful, and  finally  lose  that  fine  quality  of  manliness 
which  should  be  characteristic  of  the  Christian 
minister. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  find  the  root  of  the 
difficulty  in  any  unworthy  intention  on  either 
side.  If  our  Protestant  theology,  even  of  most 
modern  date,  records  a  long  list  of  theological 
trials  and  consequent  excommunications  and  de- 
nunciations, it  is  not  because  either  the  judges 
or  the  condemned  have  sought  to  accomplish 
any  end  whatsoever  on  a  basis  of  personal 
animus,  or  even  on  the  basis  of  a  suspicion  of 
the  Christian  character  of  the  accused.  What 
a  strange  contradiction  the  facts  present !  Men 
who  are  declared  by  all  who  know  them  best  to 
be  truly  Christian  in  character  and  spirit  are  de- 
clared unworthy  of  Christian  fellowship  in  the 
church  or  seminary  of  their  choice.  In  other 
words,  Ecclesiasticism  is  worth  more  than  Chris- 
tianity !  It  would  be  manifestly  unfair  and 
cruelly  unjust  to  accuse  the  theologian  of  insin- 


x  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

cerity.  If  he  were  insincere,  he  would  always 
agree  with  everyone,  and  so  avoid  all  criticism; 
and  certainly  from  the  standpoint  of  practical 
necessity,  if  not  from  the  higher  standpoint  of 
fellowship  with  his  ministerial  brethren,  he  can  ill 
afford  to  have  his  theology  condemned.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  would  be  equally  unfair  to  accuse 
the  examining  council  of  insincerity.  The  dif- 
ficulty does  not  reside  in  bad  faith  or  insincerity 
on  either  side. 

What  can  re-establish  harmony  and  sympathy 
between  the  theological  school  and  the  church? 
Shall  the  former  give  up  its  independence  of 
thought  and  method,  and  teach  only  what  and 
how  the  church  shall  dictate  through  her  rep- 
resentative pastors  ?  In  that  case  the  theological 
school  would  be  precisely  in  the  position  of  the 
medical  school  which  depended,  for  the  content 
of  its  scientific  training  of  prospective  physicians 
and  surgeons,  upon  the  recipes  and  dictation  of 
men  of  some  years  of  medical  experience,  in- 
stead of  relying  upon  the  independent  research 
and  progressive  thought  of  men  whose  sole  busi- 
ness is  to  discover  new  and  better  methods  by 
means  of  every  aid  which  the  modern  laboratory, 
scientifically  equipped,  can  bring  to  them. 

I  believe,  and  dare  to  affirm  most  emphati- 
cally, that  the  whole  trouble  from  which  churches 
and  theological  seminaries  are  suffering  deplora- 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE  xi 

bly  today  arises  simply  in  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  real  issue  between  the  old  and  the 
new  theology.  I  would  also  affirm  no  less  em- 
phatically that  the  real  issue  is  solely  a  question 
of  method,  and  that  the  assumption  or  suspicion 
that  the  new  theology  will  "  dethrone  Christ," 
become  "materialistic  and  anti-spiritual,"  "under- 
value the  Scriptures,"  is  one  of  the  most  absurd 
phenomena  in  the  religious  world  today.  That 
the  new  theology  will  cut  away  some  of  the  old 
system  and  narrow  its  task  to  a  more  essentially 
Christian  and  less  speculative  undertaking  is 
doubtless  true.  But  who  would  dare  to  affirm 
that  this  does  not  need  to  be  done  ?  Because  I 
thus  judged  the  issue  between  the  old  and  the 
new  theology  and  felt  the  real  character  and 
inspiration  of  the  new,  and  because  I  believed 
that  Professor  Lobstein's  book  would  clear  the 
field  of  debate  of  all  misunderstanding  as  to  the 
real  issue,  and  help  to  make  the  debate  a  kindly 
discussion  and  enthusiastic  inquiry  after  truth, 
which  would  increase,  instead  of  diminish,  fellow- 
ship between  representatives  of  various  points  of 
view,  I  obtained  his  permission  to  translate  his 
Introduction  several  years  ago.  I  regret  that 
the  work  has  been  unavoidably  delayed  by  other 
routine  duties. 

I  trust  that  those  who  read  the  book  may  find 
in  it  not  only  the  answer  to  many  questions  con- 


xii  TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE  ' 

earning  the  new  theology,  but  also  the  decided 
scientific  impulse  and  guidance,  and  above  all 
the  spiritual  light  and  help,  by  which  the  book 
immediately  commended  itself  to  the  readers  of 
the  original  text. 

ARTHUR  MAXSON  SMITH. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO, 
November  15,  1902. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE v-xii 

PREFACE xv-xxi 

CHAPTER  I.    The  Traditional  Conception  of  Dogma         i 
I.   Philological  analysis          ....          .  2 

II.   Psychological  analysis       -----  g 

III.    Historical  analysis -15 

CHAPTER  II.     The   Transformation  of  the  Idea  of 

Dogma  in  the  Protestant  Church        -         -         -       23 
I.   Absolute   contradiction   between  the  traditional 
idea   of   dogma  and   the   religious  principle  of 

Protestantism -         23 

II.   Necessity  of   a  dogmatic  expression  of  the  Prot- 
estant faith -         35 

III.   Characteristics  of  the  Protestant  conception  of 

dogma 48 

CHAPTER  III.  The  Actual  Task  of  Protestant  Dog- 
matics          58 

I.   The  necessary  correlation  between  the  notion  of 

dogma  and  the  idea  of  a  dogmatic  discipline  -  58 
II.  Protestant  dogmatics  and  the  Christian  faith  -  6 1 
III.  The  scientific  independence  and  practical  aim 

of  Protestant  dogmatics 66 

CHAPTER  IV.    The  Source  of  Protestant  Dogmatics       74 
I.   Evangelical  faith  the  source  of   Protestant  dog- 
matics        -         74 

II.   Is  the  religious  experience  of  the  Christian  the 

source  of  Protestant  dogmatics  ?         -         -         -         80 
III.   Attempt  at  a  solution  of  the  problem         -  90 
CHAPTER  V.     The  Norm  of  Protestant   Dogmatics       97 
Nature  of  the  question;  the  problem  of  the  norm 
of    dogmatics  is  equivalent  to  that   of  authori- 
ty in  matters  of  faith 97 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

I.   Elimination   of  the   legal  authority   of  Confes- 
sions of  Faith 99 

II.   Elimination  of  the  legal  authority  of  the  Holy 

Scriptures          -         -                  -         -         -         -  115 

III.   Attempt  at  a  positive  solution    -         -        -        -126 

CHAPTER  VI.     The  Method  of  Protestant  Dogmat- 
ics    142 

I.   Elimination  of  methods  incompatible  with  the 

religious  principle  of  Protestant  dogmatics         -  143 

1.  The  method  of  authority     ....  143 

2.  The  speculative  method     -         -         -  148 
II.   Attempt  at  a  positive  solution    -        -         -  158 

III.   The  sciences  auxiliary  to  Protestant  dogmatics 
and  its  place  in  the  circle  of  theological  disci- 
plines       ---.--..       180 
CHAPTER  VII.     The  Organism  of  Protestant  Dog- 
matics     ------..      209 

I.   Critical  examination  of  the   principal   methods 
of  dogmatic  classification  adopted  in  the  Prot- 
estant church    -------       210 

II.  Attempt  at  a  positive  solution. — The  christo- 
centric  classification  the  logical  result  of  the 
Protestant  principle 219 

1.  The  dominating    role  of  Christology  and 
soteriology 222 

2.  The  doctrine  of  God  -         ...      232 

3.  The  doctrine  of  creation    -  238 

4.  The  doctrine  of  Providence        -        -        -       240 

5.  Anthropology 244 

6.  Subjective  realization  of  salvation  and   its 
individual  and  collective  appropriation       -       251 

7.  Eschatology 253 

8.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity        -         -         -       256 
III.   Critical    examination    of    the  objections  to  the 

christocentric  point  of  view        ....      259 


PREFACE. 

Object  and  limits  of  this  treatise. —  Difficulties  presented  in 
the  generally  adopted  plan  of  prolegomena  to  dogmatics. — 
Course  pursued  in  this  work. 

THE  OBJECT,  extent,  and  limits  of  an  intro- 
duction to  Protestant  dogmatics  are  diversely 
appreciated  by  the  authors  who  have  most 
recently  treated  these  subjects.  The  values 
placed  on  these  are  not  more  different  and  often 
not  more  contradictory  than  the  solutions  given 
to  the  problem.  Our  early  dogmaticians  did 
not  succeed  in  establishing  a  unanimous  tradition 
on  this  point,  and  today  we  are  far  from  an 
agreement  as  to  the  manner  of  conceiving  and 
treating  that  which  is  generally  called  the  "pro- 
legomena of  Protestant  dogmatics."  Schleier- 
macher  took  for  the  basis  of  his  dialectic  and 
religious  masterpiece  several  borrowed  theses 
drawn  from  ethics,  from  the  philosophy  of 
religion,  and  from  apologetics  ;T  after  him  a 
great  number  of  theologians,  combining  with 
Schleiermacher's  propositions  certain  texts  bor- 

*Z>er  christliche  Glaube  nach  den  Grundsdtzen  der  evange- 
liscken  Kirche  im  Zusammenhange  dargestellt,  1830 3,  pp.  3—14. 
Schleiermacher  borrowed  from  ethics,  from  philosophy  of  reli- 
gion, and  from  apologetics  the  propositions  of  the  church,  religion, 
and  Christianity. 


xvi  PREFACE 

rowed  from  the  early  dogmaticians,  placed  in 
the  plan  of  their  prolegomena  a  series  of  general 
questions  pertaining  at  once  to  the  philosophy  of 
religion  and  to  Christian  dogmatics,  and  intended 
to  guide  the  reader  provisionally  in  the  labyrinth 
of  dogmatic  opinions  and  systems. 

Such  is,  for  example,  the  treatment  by  E. 
Scherer  in  his  Proltgombus  a  la  dogmatique  de 
l'£glise  rtformte  (1843).  Dogmatics  necessarily 
presupposing  the  existence  of  a  religious  society, 
Scherer  first  analyzes  the  idea  of  the  Reformed 
church  : 

Now,  that  idea  contains  several  notions  which  form, 
so  to  speak,  its  genesis.  These  notions  are  religion,  reve- 
lation, Christianity,  the  church,  and  the  Reformation. 
Having  compassed  that  series  of  ideas,  we  have  obtained 
a  view  of  the  dogmatic  ground  which  we  are  to  explore, 
and  from  the  midst  of  which  we  are  to  take  our  point  of 
departure.1 

Although  French  dogmaticians  have  not  all 
treated  prolegomena  in  the  same  ample  manner, 
still  they  too  have  in  various  degrees  attributed 
to  the  introduction  to  dogmatics  a  series  of  prob- 
lems which,  to  tell  the  truth,  belong  to  dog- 
matics itself. 

This  role  assigned  to  prolegomena  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  conform  to  its  true  mission.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  encounters  serious  difficulties. 
The  objections  which  it  raises  are  not  a  ques- 

'P.  3- 


PREFACE  xvii 

tion  of  terminology;  they  affect  the  very  foun- 
dation of  theological  science  and  strike  at 
the  very  life  of  the  problems  to  be  treated. 
Indeed,  to  analyze,  as  Scherer  does,  the  idea  of 
Protestant  dogmatics  and  that  of  the  Reformed 
church,  to  develop  the  content  of  these  two  no- 
tions—  is  not  this  to  answer  in  advance  the 
questions  which  a  dogmatic  system  alone  is  ex- 
pected to  solve  ?  How  can  the  essence  of  reli- 
gion be  treated  independently  of  all  reflection 
upon  God  and  Man  ?  Is  it  not  evident  that 
every  attempt  to  define  religion  presupposes  and 
implies  a  doctrine  resting  upon  the  two  terms 
(  God  and  Man)  the  synthesis  of  which  the  idea 
of  religion  seeks  ?  That  is,  the  theologian  will 
be  obliged  to  make  preliminary  excursions  into 
the  camp  of  Christian  dogmatics,  or  he  must 
consider  as  implicitly  solved  those  problems  of 
which  he  possesses  as  yet  only  the  elements. 
For  example,  again,  the  idea  of  revelation  and 
the  conception  of  miracle  cannot  be  examined 
with  results  except  in  the  light  of  a  general  view 
of  God,  Man,  and  the  World.  But  the  theolo- 
gian has  neither  the  occasion  nor  the  means  of 
developing  and  establishing  that  general  view. 
Likewise,  researches  on  the  origin  and  character 
of  the  Holy  Scripture,  on  its  inspiration1  and 

1 "  Far  from  being  the  primary  question  which  dogmatics  can 
and  ought  to  solve,  the  theory  of  inspiration  can  hardly  be  other 


xviii  PREFACE 

authority,  are  entirely  dependent  upon  our  man- 
ner of  comprehending  the  essence  of  Christianity, 
the  significance  of  the  historical  element  in  the 
Christian  religion,  the  relation  of  the  Old  to  the 
New  Dispensation,  the  role  of  the  church  and  its 
relation  to  the  individual.  These  problems, 
then,  the  theologian  will  decide  only  provision- 
ally ;  he  will  not  discuss  questions  of  principle, 
except  with  the  privilege  of  revision,  soliciting 
of  the  patience  of  his  readers  a  blank  check,  as  it 
were,  which  he  will  not  fill  in  until  later — a  vote 
of  confidence  which  he  will  feel  compelled  to 
justify  in  the  course  of  his  labor,  but  which  for 
the  moment  is  an  act  of  fides  implicita,  little  in 
harmony,  to  be  sure,  with  the  Protestant  con- 
science. 

But  will  the  dogmatician  attempt  a  twofold 
treatment  of  identical  material,  first  a  provisional 
treatment,  taking  no  account  of  connected  sub- 
jects, then  later  re-establishing  the  broken  line  of 
central  doctrines  of  Christianity  and  the  questions 
of  principle  formerly  examined?  Such  a  study 
in  double  entry  would  run  the  risk  of  producing 
troublesome  misunderstandings,  idle  repetitions, 
and  those  developments  which  sometimes  infringe 
upon  ground  later  explored,  sometimes  repeat 
subjects  already  treated.  In  either  case  the  unity 

than  one  of  the  last."— PH.  BRIDEL,  Encyclopldie  des  sciences 
religieuses,  Vol.  XII  (Paris,  1882),  p.  no. 


PREFACE  XIX 

of  the  system  and  the  clearness  of  exposition  would 
be  compromised  by  a  process  which  would  en- 
tangle at  every  point  the  thread  of  theological 
argumentation. 

What,  then,  should  be  the  method  of  treat- 
ment, and  how  can  these  difficulties  be  avoided  ? 
It  is  necessary  to  eliminate  a  series  of  problems 
which  the  majority  of  theologians  assign  to  prole- 
gomena and  which  really  are  integral  elements  of 
the  organism  of  Christian  doctrine.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  narrow  the  scope  of  our  introduction  to 
the  subjects  which  are  directly  related  to  its  field, 
and  which  it  is  possible  to  elucidate  without  con- 
stantly encroaching  upon  ground  which,  as  yet,  is 
foreign  to  our  researches.  It  is  necessary,  finally, 
to  limit  ourselves  to  the  questions  of  principle  and 
method  which  naturally  spring  from  Protestant 
dogmatics  itself,  and  which  are  clearly  indicated 
to  us  by  the  nature  of  that  science.  What  an  in- 
troduction will  thus  lose  in  breadth  it  will  gain  in 
strength  and  depth.  It  will  doubtless  be  impos- 
sible to  avoid  completely  all  a  priori  matter ;  in 
spite  of  every  attempt  to  the  contrary,  it  will  be 
necessary  at  times  to  anticipate  subjects  which 
will  reappear  in  the  body  of  the  dogmatic  system, 
but  it  will  not  be  forgotten  that  proved  assertions 
are  distinctly  different  from  those  which  will  not 
be  indicated  without  provision  for  testing  and 
re-establishing  them  later  in  the  work.  Thus  by 


XX  •  PREFACE 

keeping  in  view  the  resources  at  its  disposal,  by 
confining  itself  within  its  proper  limits,  an  intro- 
duction to  dogmatics,  far  from  abandoning  its 
rightful  ground,  gives  to  the  superstructure  of  the 
system  a  stronger  foundation ;  it  determines  and 
guides  future  researches ;  it  is  assured,  if  not  of 
success,  at  least  of  a  clear  and  purposeful  pro- 
cedure.1 

Thus  conceived,  our  method  cannot  be  doubt- 
ful. We  will  ask,  first,  what  is  understood  by 
dogma  ?  That  question  answered,  we  shall  be  in 
a  position  to  show  what  should  be  the  actual  task 
of  Protestant  dogmatics.  Researches  bearing  on 
this  subject  will  be  considered  in  view  of  the  fol- 
lowing problems,  so  much  discussed :  What  are 
the  sources  of  Protestant  dogmatics  ?  What  is 
its  norm  ?  What  is  its  principle  ?  To  answer 
these  questions  will  be  to  determine  the  method 
which  belongs  to  Protestant  dogmatics  ;  it  will  be, 
at  the  same  time,  to  assign  to  each  part  its  place 
in  the  organism  of  theology,  and  to  indicate  those 
sciences  whose  assistance  are  necessary  to  it. 
Finally,  there  will  be  an  attempt  to  classify  pre- 
cisely the  matter  to  be  treated,  to  outline  the 
divisions  of  the  system,  and  to  show  the  bond 

1  Many  of  the  dogmaticians  of  our  day  follow  the  method  I 
have  indicated.  For  example,  A.  Schweitzer,  Dorner,  Nitzsch. 
A  few  place  the  preliminary  questions  of  research  after  the  Chris- 
tian verity  or  after  the  theory  of  knowledge  (Lipsius,  Dorner, 
Frank,  Cremer,  Kaehler). 


PREFACE  XXi 

which  unites  each  element  of  dogmatics  with  the 
principle  which  engenders  and  sustains  it. 

In  tracing  this  program,  I  am  not  unmindful 
of  the  difficulties  presented  in  its  execution.  Va- 
rious works  have  recently  treated  the  majority  of 
the  points  which  we  will  touch  upon  in  this  intro- 
duction. I  shall  cite  the  principal  ones,  without 
pretending  to  exhaust  the  entire  number ;  but  I 
shall  be  careful  to  place  in  the  notes  the  biblio- 
graphical references  and  details  of  pure  erudition ; 
that  will  be  the  only  means  of  clearing  the  order 
of  exposition  without  compromising  its  strength.1 

1  The  references  in  the  original  are  confined  almost  exclusively 
to  French  and  German  literature,  which  would  be  either  inaccessi- 
ble or  useless  to  those  for  whom  this  translation  has  been  prepared, 
hence  are  very  largely  omitted  from  this  translation. — [TRANS- 
LATOR.] 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    TRADITIONAL    CONCEPTION    OF    DOGMA. 

I.  Philological  analysis. —  Etymology  and  meaning  of  the 
word  "dogma." — Classical  Greek:  the  political  and  philosophi- 
cal meaning  of  the  term. —  Biblical  Greek:  the  version  of  the 
Septuagint,  of  the  New  Testament.  —  Ecclesiastical  Greek : 
changes  in  the  use  of  the  term;  return  to  the  philosophical  usage  ; 
restriction  to  the  theoretical  sphere ;  dogma  differentiated  from 
popular  preaching  and  moral  and  practical  decisions. —  Result  of 
the  philological  inquiry. 

II.  Psychological  analysis. —  The  primitive  phenomenon  of 
piety  and  the  secondary  character  of  dogma. —  Evolutionary  force 
and  manifold  manifestations  of  religious  sentiment :  place  of 
dogma  in  the  series  of  various  expressions  of  piety. —  Role  of  a 
community  in  the  transformation  of  a  doctrine  into  dogma :  the 
idea  of  collectivity,  the  idea  of  authority. 

III.  Historical  analysis. —  The  illusion  common  to  the  Roman 
church,  to  Protestant  orthodoxy,  and  to  the  Hegelian  school : 
dogma,  the  organic  flowering  and  adequate  expression  of  reli- 
gious faith. —  Foreign  factors  which  enter  into  that  analysis; 
necessity  of  a  constant  study  of  the  history  of  dogma. —  Charac- 
teristic stages  of  doctrinal  evolution :  the  Christian  religion's 
progressive  assimilation  of  philosophical  knowledge,  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Catholic  church,  the  official  sanction  of  the  State. — 
Result  of  the  historical  inquiry:  dogma  is  obligatory  belief 
decreed  by  an  infallible  church  and  sanctioned  by  an  absolute 
State. —  Agreement  of  the  threefold  philological,  psychological, 
and  historical  analyses. —  The  problem  which  this  imposes  on  the 
theologian  :  does  the  traditional  conception  of  dogma  correspond 
to  the  religious  principle  of  Protestantism  ? 

BEFORE  determining  the  actual  task  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics  it  is  necessary  to  establish  the 


2  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

precise  meaning  which  is  to  be  attached  to  the 
conception  of  dogma.1  Recent  arguments  as  to 
the  necessity  or  uselessness  of  dogma,  the  dog- 
matic or  non-dogmatic  character  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  biblical  or  pretended  biblical  dog- 
mas, have  been  at  once  as  passionate  as  they 
have  been  sterile,  because  very  often  those  who 
have  debated  have  neglected  to  give  their  un- 
derstanding of  the  term  in  question.  To  the 
questions,  "Does  the  New  Testament  contain 
dogmas?  Was  the  Reformation  the  end  of 
dogmas?  Do  we  need  a  new  dogma?  "  one  may 
answer  affirmatively  or  negatively,  according  to 
the  meaning  which  he  attaches  to  the  word 
"  dogma."  We  cannot  see,  therefore,  how  it  is 
possible  to  dispense  with  the  preliminary  work 
of  an  examination  of  this  problem.  We  will 
begin  by  examining  the  traditional  idea  of 
dogma  which,  borrowed  by  our  reformers  from 
the  Roman  church  and  propagated  by  Protestant 
orthodoxy,  still  more  or  less  certainly  dominates 
contemporary  theology. 

I. 

Let  us  first  establish  the  results  of  a  philo- 
logical analysis  of  the  term  "  dogma."  The  word 

XI  am  pleased  to  note  that  Bovon  has  also  followed  the 
method  I  have  adopted.  He  says :  "  In  order  to  know  what 
dogmatics  is,  it  is  necessary  to  determine  first  in  what  dogma 
consists." — Dogmatique  chritienne,  Vol.  I,  p.  I. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  3 

has  a  history  in  which  one  may  distinguish  three 
periods,  or  rather  three  groups  of  usage,  which 
frequently  border  on  each  other,  or  even  over- 
lap. It  is  accordingly  necessary  to  examine  suc- 
cessively the  signification  of  the  term  in  the 
classical  Greek,  in  the  terminology  of  the  Septua- 
gint  and  of  the  New  Testament,  and  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  church  Fathers. 

In  the  language  of  the  profane  writers  of  the 
classical  age  and  the  succeeding  period,  the  word 
"  dogma  "  is  attached  directly  to  the  verb  from 
which  it  is  derived,  Sotcd  /*ot,  ISo|e  ravra,  visum 
est,  placuit,  "  it  seems  good."  It  has  primarily 
the  same  meaning  as  the  past  participle  TO  Se- 
&oy/j,evov ;  it  designates  a  decision,  an  ordinance, 
a  decree,  a  measure  decreed  by  the  senate,  or  a 
law  promulgated  by  the  popular  assembly  and 
sanctioned  by  an  authority  universally  recog- 
nized.1 

In  the  political,  civil,  and  social  sphere,  the 
term  passes  over  into  the  philosophical  domain. 
The  word  occurs  in  this  sense  rarely  in  Plato, 
more  often  in  Aristotle,  very  frequently  in  Plu- 
tarch, and,  with  various  shades  of  meaning,  in  the 

1  The  term  is  frequently  synonymous  with  the  word  \}/-fi<j>iaiM, 
cf.  POLYBIUS,  X,  §4,  §6;  III,  §27,  7;  My/Mra  rr)s  ffvyicX^rov, 
"decrees  of  the  senate,"  cf.  HERODIANUS,  VII,  §10,  §8.  It  is 
also  synonymous  with  "law,"  "ordinance,"  PLATO,  De  Leg-,  I, 
§644,  D  ;  Koivbv  iriXewj  567/110,,  cf.  the  expression  diryfM  •jroieiff- 
ftu, "  to  decree,"  "  to  decide,"  XENOPHON,  Anabasis,  III,  §3,  5. 


4  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  ' 

majority  of  the  schools  of  philosophy.  The  sig- 
nification of  the  term  changes  according  to  the 
character  of  the  schools  in  which  it  is  used.  With 
the  Pythagoreans  the  word  Soypara,  a  synonym 
of  o-Toi%ela,  designates  the  elementary  principles 
and  truths.  The  Stoics  understood  by  dogmas 
the  axioms,  the  self-evident  propositions,  ac- 
cepted by  all  men  and  clothed  with  this  title  of 
indisputable  authority.  In  a  passage  often  quoted 
Cicero  recalls  that  the  philosophers  call  dogmas 
the  certain  and  fundamental  truths  decreed  by 
the  wisdom  which  ought  not  to  doubt  either  itself 
or  its  decisions.1  Conformably  to  the  practical 
character  of  their  philosophy,  the  Stoics  recom- 
mended that  these  truths  should  be  made  the 
regulative  principles  of  conduct.2  The  skeptic 
philosophers,  holding  that  the  human  spirit  can- 
not attain  truth,  called  dogmas  the  opinions 
which  pretend  to  a  certitude  inaccessible  to  man, 
not  capable  of  proof,  and  leaning  upon  simple 
authority.  Hence  the  disfavor  which,  after  that 
time,  attached  to  the  terms  "  dogmas,"  "  dog- 
matics," "  dogmatism."  Finally  Kant  opposed 
dogmatism  to  criticism.  The  former  dares  to 
affirm  before  it  gives  account  of  the  conditions 
of  knowledge  ;  the  latter  examines  the  resources 

1  CICERO,  Quastioncs  academics,  IV,  §  9. 

•SENECA,  Epist.  95;  MARCUS  AURELIUS,  II,  §3;  III,  §6; 
IV,  §3. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  5 

at  the  disposal  of  reason  before  it  risks  the  build- 
ing of  any  system.  Whatever  the  variety  of 
schools  or  systems  may  be,  the  term  "  dogma  " 
designates,  in  the  philosophical  language  of  the 
profane  Greek,  a  principle,  an  opinion,  a  theo- 
retical or  practical  doctrinal  point. 

This  philosophical  meaning  of  the  term 
"dogma"  is  foreign  to  the  biblical  language  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

In  the  Septuagint  the  terms  8dy/j,a,  Soyfjuar^etv, 
are  employed  in  the  political  sense  which 
we  find  in  the  classical  writers ;  they  signify  a 
legislative  disposition,  a  decree,  a  royal  edict.  The 
Hebrew  words  of  the  original  text  are  immaterial ; 
the  meaning  common  to  all  these  expressions  is 
the  same  and  is  confined  within  the  limits  traced 
by  the  primitive  usage  of  the  profane  Greek. 
Dan.  6:8,  9  ;  2:13;  3:  10,  29;  2  Mace.  10:8  ; 
15:36. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  word  Soypa  occurs 
only  five  times.1  The  political  significance  is 
found  in  two  passages.  In  Luke  2  :  I,  the  imperial 
edict  ordering  a  census  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
empire  is  called  Sdypa.  According  to  the  book 
of  Acts  (17:7),  Paul  and  Silas  are  accused  by 
their  Jewish  adversaries  of  acting  contrary  to  the 
decrees  of  the  emperor,  cnrevavn  r&v  Soypdrajv 

1  Heb.  2  :  23  must  be  excluded ;  it  should  read  T&  Sidrayfia. 
(not  rb  d6yiM)  TOV  / 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

vrpda-o-ovsiv.  In  two  of  Paul's  epistles 
(Col.  2:14;  Eph.  2:15;  cf.  2  Cor.,  chaps.  3  and 
4)  the  Judaic  ordinances  from  which  Jesus  Christ 
has  freed  Christians  bear  the  name  of  "  dogmas  ;" 
in  both  cases  the  term  is  employed  with  a  mean- 
ing of  great  disfavor;  it  serves  to  characterize 
"the  imperative  letter  and  statutory  form  of  the 
law,  in  opposition  to  the  spiritual  essence  of  the 
Gospel  and  of  the  ministry  of  the  Spirit."1  In 
another  passage  in  the  New  Testament  the 
SdypaTa  designate  the  practical  decisions  adopted 
by  the  church  of  Jerusalem  in  view  of  the  separa- 
tion of  the  two  elements  of  the  Christian  society. 
Paul  and  Timothy  "  went  on  their  way  through  the 
cities"  delivering  "them  the  decrees  for  to  keep, 
which  had  been  ordained  of  the  apostles  and 
elders  that  were  at  Jerusalem"  (Acts  16:4). 
Moreover,  referring  to  the  discussions  of  the  Con- 
ference of  Jerusalem,  the  sacred  writer,  relating 
the  famous  decree  promulgated  by  the  apostles, 
suggests  to  us  the  bond  which  exists  between  the 
term  Sdypa  and  the  verb  from  which  it  is  derived. 
"It  seemed  good  (ISofei/)  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
to  us,  to  lay  upon  you  no  greater  burden  than 
these  necessary  things;  that  ye  abstain  from 
things  sacrificed  to  idols,  and  from  blood,  and 
from  things  .  strangled,  and  from  fornication  " 
(Acts  15  :  28,  29  ;  see  vss.  22  and  25).  Such  is 

'SABATIER,  Revue  chrttienne,  Vol.  I  (1892),  p.  24. 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  7 

the  usage  of  "dogma"  in  the  New  Testament. 
"The  sacred  writers  never  apply  the  word  '  dog- 
ma '  to  evangelical  truth,  neither  do  they  repre- 
sent that  truth  as  imposed  upon  men  as  a  legal 
text  or  a  decision  of  an  emperor  or  an  assembly."  * 
The  terms  which  designate  evangelical  preaching 
are  void  of  all  scientific  pretention  and  official 
sanction  ;  they  are  essentially  religious  and  popu- 
lar in  character.2 

What,  finally,  is  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"dogma"  in  the  ecclesiastical  language  of  the 
early  centuries?  The  Fathers  did  not  derive  its 
sacred  meaning  from  the  New  Testament ;  they 
followed  the  traditions  of  the  philosophical  schools 
of  Greece,  notably  those  of  Stoicism.  The 
increasing  ascendency  which  the  spirit  and  meth- 
ods of  ancient  philosophy  gained  in  the  Christian 
church  appears  in  the  application  of  the  word 
"  dogma  "  to  the  Christian  verity.  Although  the 
majority  of  the  ancient  Fathers  had  not  yet  dis- 
tinguished between  the  theoretical  and  practical 
sides  of  Christian  doctrines,  more  and  more  the 
word  "dogma"  was  applied  to  the  intellectual 
truths  placed  under  the  sanction  of  the  Old 
Testament,  of  Christ,  and  the  apostles.3  That 

'BOVON,  Dogmatique  chretienne,  Vol.  I,  p.  3,  note  I. 

"Mark  I  :  I;  Mat.  4  :23  ;  Rom.  I  :  I,  3;  10  :  17;  Col.  3  : 16; 
Eph.  6:17. 

3QRIGEN,    Contra   Ceh.   Ill,  39;  CHRYSOSTUM,  In  Ep.  ad 


8  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

progressive  restriction  of  the  term  to  the  theo- 
retical and  speculative  sphere  is  explained  by  the 
evolution  of  Christian  thought  which,  after  the 
Apologists,  tended  to  resolve  Christianity  into  a 
new  philosophy,  a  revealed  philosophy  forming 
an  extension  of  natural  theology.  It  is  true  that 
there  are  some  passages  which  show  that  certain 
teachers  were  conscious  of  the  human  element 
inherent  in  Christian  doctrines,  also  passages 
which  speak  of  the  dogmas  of  heretics  or  pagans  ; 
but  these  are  exceptions,  and  the  majority  of  the 
Fathers  reserved  the  name  "  dogma  "  for  revealed 
truths;  that  is,  truths  sanctioned  by  tradition. 

The  meaning  of  the  word  was  still  more  pre- 
cisely determined  and  limited  by  certain  expres- 
sions which,  especially  among  the  writers  of  the 
fourth  century,  were  distinguished  from  the  term 
"dogmas."  The  primitive  unity  which  main- 
tained between  the  practical  and  the  intellectual 
truths  of  Christianity  began  to  relax,  and  finally 
dissolved  altogether.  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
describing  the  didactic  and  pedagogic  work  of 
the  Logos,  distinguishes  the  practical  offices  from 
those  which  concern  dogmatic  things.1  The 
same  divorce  occurs  between  the  doctrinal 

Philip.  Homil.  6  ;  EUSEBIUS,  Hist,  eccles.,  VII,  30;  IX,  5  ;  cf. 
VINCENT.  LIRIN.,  Commonit.,  I,  23  ;  Prisca  coelestis  philosophiae 
dogmata. 

XCLEM.  ALEX.,  Paedag.,  I,  i. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  9 

and  the  practical  element  in  Cyril  of  Jerusalem, 
Meletius  of  Antioch,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and 
Theodoret.  Thus  was  constituted  the  dualism 
which  dominated  Greek  and  Roman  Catholicism. 
"Christianity  found  itself  divided  into  two  parts  : 
on  one  hand  was  a  series  of  intellectual  truths 
which  must  be  admitted  ;  on  the  other  hand  was 
a  series  of  moral  precepts  which  must  be  realized 
in  conduct.  The  sum  of  these  two  constituted 
faith."1 

Finally,  the  terminology  of  the  Fathers 
opposed  the  scientific  formulation  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  to  the  popular  preaching  of  the  Gospel ; 
the  latter  was  called  Krjpvypa,  the  former  Soy^a. 

If  the  texts  furnished  by  the  history  of  the 
word  "dogma"  are  collected  and  established,  it 
will  be  found  that  the  analogy  with  the  philo- 
sophical usage  of  the  term  prevailed  in  the 
church ;  moreover,  the  political  conception  in 
usage  with  the  profane  writers,  the  conception  ©f 
authority,  of  a  decree,  of  legal  sanction,  com- 
bined with  the  philosophical  usage,  so  that  the 
word  "  dogma"  came  to  be  a  synonym  for 
"authoritative  instruction,"  "  obligatory  belief," 
sanctioned  by  tradition. 
II. 

It  would  be  superficial  to  stop  with  the  theo- 
logical evolution  of  the  term  Soy/ia  without 

'SABATIER,  Revue  chretienne  (1892),  I,  p.  25. 


10  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

attempting  to  understand,  beyond  the  expres- 
sion, the  idea,  or  rather  the  living  content,  which 
found  its  scientific  formulation  in  the  dogma.  A 
psychological  analysis  of  the  genesis  of  dogma 
will  throw  considerable  light  on  the  history  of 
the  word. 

To  affirm  the  derived  and  secondary  char- 
acter of  dogma  would  be  a  superfluous  statement 
which  is  no  longer  contradicted.  The  primary 
phenomenon  is  piety,  the  inner  life  oAthe  spirit 
in  conscious  relationship  with 
essential  distinction  between  religion 
ogy,  more  especially  between  faith  and  dogma — 
a  distinction  not  recognized  by  any  of  the  forms 
of  intellectualism  —  is  one  of  the  fundamental 
axioms  of  contemporary  religious  philosophy. 
Schleiermacher1  was  the  first  to  bring  this  dis- 
tinction out  into  full  light;  but,  prior  to 
Schleiermacher,  it  was  indicated  by  Spinoza, 
Semler,  Lessing,  De  Wette.  Among  French 
theologians,  Benjamin  Constant  and  Vinet  recog- 
nized this  distinction  which,  in  our  day,  is  gener- 
ally accepted. 

Sabatier,  commenting  on  one  of  Rothe's  excel- 
lent studies,2  says :  "  Dogma  is  not  a  flower  of 
the  springtime  ;  it  is  an  autumn  fruitage,  and  it 

'See  especially  Der  christliche  Glaube,  15-19  ("Vom  Ver- 
haltniss  der  Dogmatik  zur  christlichen  Frommigkeit"). 

*Zur  Dogmatik  (Gotha,  1869),  art.  I. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  I T 

presupposes,  before  its  ripening,  a  long  period  of 
growth." x  The  root  of  dogma  is  found  in  religious 
experience,  produced  or  awakened  by  an  objec- 
tive factor,  in  which  piety  recognizes  a  divine 
manifestation,  a  revelation.  The  religious  senti- 
ment exists  prior  to  theological  formula.  To  be 
sure,  religious  sentiment,  from  its  first  appear- 
ance, is  never  void  of  intellectual  elements.  Piety 
implies  and  contains  conceptions  more  or  less  ob- 
scure, judgments  more  or  less  confused.  To  affirm 
the  absolute  isolation  of  religious  emotion  and  its 
fundamental  independence  with  regard  to  all 
manifestation  of  intelligence  would  be  to  destroy 
.the  indissoluble  unity  of  the  faculties  of  the  soul 
and  make  a  scission  in  the  life  of  the  individual 
amounting  to  mutilation.  If  we  confine  ourselves 
to  the  statement  of  that  which  collective  and  in- 
dividual experience  invariably  attests,  it  is  this  : 
Dogmatic  formulation  is  a  relatively  tardy  prod- 
uct of  the  religious  life.  Before  extending  to 
the  scientific  sphere,  subjective  religion  seeks  its 
expression  in  the  domain  of  the  imagination  and 
of  the  will.  The  feeling  of  piety,  expressing 
itself  outwardly,  first  assumes  a  concrete  and  per- 
ceptible form  in  the  image,  the  symbol,  sacred 
poesy,  mythology.  Humanity,  in  its  religious- 
development,  follows  a  course  analogous  to  that 
of  the  child.  The  imaginative  faculties  develop 

*Revue  chr&tienne  (1892),  I,  p.  35. 


12  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

prior  to  dogmatic  reflection.  The  child  rushes 
into  the  world  of  poesy,  and  the  loftiest  religious 
truths  are  accessible  to  his  heart,  but  in  the  forms 
and  colors  with  which  his  fancy  clothes  them. 
In  this  first  phase  of  his  development,  in  which 
the  emotional  impressions  dominate,  it  is  very 
evident  that  the  intelligence  is  exercised  and 
that  thought  does  not  rest  inactive  ;  but  the  con- 
cept is  not  yet  distinguished  from  emotion,  and 
the  form  which  faith  assumes  is  aesthetic,  not 
scientific. 

The  form  of  expression  which  piety  borrows 
from  poesy  is  essentially  individual.  But  sub- 
jective religion  struggles  to  free  itself  from  that' 
limited  sphere.  The  evolutionary  power  which  is 
inherent  in  it  exercises  a  ruling  influence  and  is 
endowed  with  an  extraordinarily  communicative 
virtue  ;  it  attracts  and  holds  together  the  souls 
and  consciences  which  it  unites,  not  only  by  com- 
mon emotions,  but  as  well  by  the  bond  of  religious 
rites  and  cult.1  "  Man  loves  to  bear  witness  be- 
fore others  and  with  others.  He  loves  to  transfer 
to  their  spirits  the  sentiments  by  which  he  is 
moved,  and  to  feel  in  himself  the  sympathetic 
transmission  of  the  sentiments  which  animate 

xBovon,  analyzing  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  senti- 
ment, denies  that  it  possesses  the  power  of  communication,  and 
declares  that  it  is  "incommunicable  and  intransmissible  "(pp.  cit., 
Vol.  I,  p.  14).  That  assertion  seems  to  me  to  be  contradicted  by 
the  consensus  of  testimony  of  psychology  and  history. 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 3 

them."1  Now  cult,  in  all  religions,  is  not  only  a 
means  of  realizing  the  union  of  man  with  the 
divine  ;  it  has  also  a  collective  import,  an  emi- 
nently social  significance.  In  the  ceremonies  of 
religious  cult,  especially  in  sacrifices,  man  seeks 
to  reunite,  to  re-establish,  to  fortify  the  bond 
which  holds  him  to  his  god,  and  he  also  tends  to 
affirm  his  solidarity  with  those  who  profess  the 
same  religion  ;  he  actualizes  the  individual  and 
the  collective  will. 

It  is  on  this  account  also  that  piety  expresses 
itself  objectively  in  social  institutions,  as  the  soul 
reveals  and  realizes  itself  in  the  body.  The  primi- 
tive civilization  of  all  peoples  is  composed  of 
similar  institutions,  created  and  sanctioned  by 
religion.  Without  in  any  manner  treating  ade- 
quately the  much-controverted  problem  of  the 
relation  of  religion  to  morality,  it  is  nevertheless 
possible  to  affirm  that  a  large  number  of  the 
moral  precepts  and  usages,  in  all  countries  and 
all  times,  have  been  the  direct  products  of  reli- 
gious sentiment. 

Dogma  has  its  place  among  these  particular 
forms  of  subjective  religion;  it  is  "one  of  the 
languages  which  faith  speaks."2  Like  symbols, 
myths,  rites,  moral  and  social  institutions,  it  draws 
its  substance  and  its  justification  from  the  reli- 

*REVILLE,  Prollgomtnes  de  fhistoire  des  religions  (Paris, 
1881),  p.  166. 

2Cn.  Bois,  Revue  theologique,  1890,  p.  162. 


14  AN  INTRODUCTION  TQ 

gious  life,  from  piety.  It  is,  in  general,  much  more 
recent  than  the  other  products  of  religious  senti- 
ment, for  it  involves  scientific  reflection  which  is 
awakened  and  exercised  much  later  than  the  im- 
agination and  the  will.  None  the  less  true  is  it 
that  every  dogma  worthy  of  the  name  sinks  its 
roots  into  the  soil  of  the  religious  life,  begun  or 
developed  under  the  influence  of  an  objective 
factor,  a  natural  phenomenon,  or  a  historical  fact. 
That  is  the  living  source  of  dogma  which  has  its 
formal  development  in  the  intellectual  elaboration 
of  religious  data.  The  formal  element  of  dogma 
is  always  suggested  and  determined  by  scientific 
reflection  which  is  assisted  in  turn  by  the  mate- 
rials furnished  by  the  intellectual  and  moral  cul- 
ture, the  prevailing  philosophy,  and  the  general 
environment  of  scientific  knowledge  of  a  given 
epoch. 

However,  dogma  is  not  identical  with  religious 
belief,  or  with  an  article  of  faith  scientifically 
formulated.  In  order  that  dogma  may  become 
established,  it  is  necessary  that  the  scientific  ex- 
pression of  religious  truth  shall  fulfil  a  double 
condition  or  assume  a  double  character ;  dogma 
must  have  attached  to  it  an  idea  of  collectivity 
and  an  idea  of  authority. 

The  individual  decision  of  a  doctor  of  the- 
ology does  not  suffice  to  give  birth  to  a  dogma; 
/  dogma  is  a  product  of  the  religious  society,  of 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 5 

the  church.  The  religious  development,  some  of 
the  stages  of  which  I  have  indicated,  does  not 
vlead  to  the  constitution  of  dogma  unless  it  takes 
place  within  a  community  of  believers.  The  au- 
thority of  an  individual  cannot  transform  an 
opinion  into  dogma ;  the  sanction  of  the  church 
is  necessary.  It  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  church 
and  by  the  will  of  the  church  that  dogma  takes 
on  a  concrete  and  historical  form.  The  church 
affirms  its  thought  in  dogma,  and  it  demands  the 
assent  of  its  members  to  the  doctrine  which  it  has 
formulated ;  dogma  claims  the  authority  of  law 
within  the  church  which  has  promulgated  it. 
There  are  doubtless  different  conceptions  of 
dogma  and  of  religious  society,  of  the  faith  which 
it  demands  and  the  authority  it  exercises;  but 
never  and  in  no  wise  could  dogma  be  individual  or 
arbitrary ;  it  presupposes  always  a  church  which 
formulates  it,  an  authority  which  establishes  it. 
The  ideas  of  religious  association  and  religious 
authority  express  and  condition  themselves  in  the 
conception  of  dogma ;  without  these  there  may 
be  individual  beliefs  and  popular  doctrines,  but 
not  dogmas. 

III. 

The  psychological  analysis  which  we  have 
just  sketched  is  strengthened  and  supplemented 
by  a  historical  analysis  which  both  confirms  and 
illustrates  the  foregoing  observations. 


1 6  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

If  the  evolution  above  traced  could  always 
take  place  under  normal  conditions,  dogma  would 
invariably  be  the  correct  and  adequate  expression, 
the  legitimate  fruit  of  faith.  But  history  proves 
that  the  process  has  not  been  thus  normal.  The 
dogmatic  development  has  never  proceeded  in 
direct  lines,  but  at  every  point  has  been  entangled 
with  factors  foreign  to  the  religious  principle 
which  primarily  gave  the  impulse  to  theological 
thought.  The  application  of  a  critical  historical 
method  to  the  study  of  dogmas  has  abolished 
the  illusion  which  considered  dogmatic  develop- 
ment an  organic  flowering  and  unfolding  of  the 
religious  germ.  This  false  conception  of  the 
genesis  and  development  of  dogma  is  common  to 
the  Roman  church,  to  Protestant  orthodoxy,  and 
to  the  Hegelian  school.  According  to  the  Cath- 
olic idea,  the  dogmatic  tradition  is  simply  the 
evolution,  ever  more  distinct,  and  the  affirmation, 
ever  more  precise,  of  the  truths  latent  in  the 
primitive  consciousness  of  the  church  which,  in 
her  opposition  to  heresy  and  schism,  is  compelled 
to  define  and  formulate  dogma,  without  these 
formulas  and  definitions  adding  anything  new  to 
the  effective  treasury  of  the  religious  revelations 
in  the  possession  of  the  church.  According  to 
Protestant  orthodoxy,  the  chain  of  Christian 
truths,  unbroken  during  the  early  centuries  of  the 
church,  later  broken  by  the  mistakes  and  errors 


•'        PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  l^ 

of  Rome,  was  renewed  by  the  Reformation,  and 
thenceforth  continued  to  gain  in  strength,  being 
enriched  by  new  links,  so  that  between  the  scrip- 
tural revelation  and  confessional  orthodoxy  the 
historical  continuity  of  Christian  truth  has  been 
perfectly  re-established.  According  to  the  Hege^ 
lian  school,  dogma  is  the  result  of  an  inner  neces- 
sity, identical  with  the  laws  which  govern  the\ 
development  of  the  Absolute,  and  repeating 
themselves  with  a  fatal  and  hopeless  monotony, 
according  to  the  threefold  scheme  of  thesis,  an- 
tithesis, synthesis. 

One  of  the  errors  common  to  these  three  con- 
ceptions of  religious  development  results  from 
ignorance  of  the  real  conditions  of  life  and  of  his- 
tory. The  careful  and  independent  observer  of 
the  facts  will  be  easily  convinced  that  the  evolu- 
tion of  dogma  is  far  from  being  always  a  sponta- 
neous flowering  of  the  Christian  'principle;  that 
factors  foreign  to  faith  have  mingled  with  the 
factors  which  are  peculiar  to  faith ;  that  that 
which  is  and  has  been  does  not  necessarily  have 
to  be  forever;  that  the  dogmatic  elaboration  of 
the  church  has  contained  gropings  in  the  dark, 
recoils,  and  deviations ;  that  political  interests  and 
passions,  practical  needs  of  cult  and  organization, 
the  ruling  methods  and  traditions  of  philosophy 
and  science,  have  powerfully  acted  upon  the  for- 
mation of  ecclesiastical  dogma  ;  that,  finally,  and 


18  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  . 

above  all,  personalities,  men  of  thought,  of  piety, 
of  action,  have  left  their  stamp  upon  the  concep- 
tion and  molding  of  the  formulas  of  faith. 

After  all,  it  is  men  who  make  history,  men  with  their 
varied  needs,  their  peculiar  aptitudes,  their  individual 
tendencies.  They  are  immersed,  no  doubt,  in  the  general 
current ;  they  belong  to  it  and  follow  it ;  but  they  are  dis- 
tinguished from  it,  nevertheless,  and  they  pursue  it  ever 
with  the  necessity  of  maintaining  in  it  a  personal  factor  of 
assimilation  and  reproduction. ' 

It  is  necessary  to  take  account  of  all  these 
data  in  order  to  comprehend  the  value  of  the  tra- 
ditional idea  of  dogma  and  to  appreciate  the  his- 
torical formation  of  that  idea.  In  a  word,  the 
notion  itself  is  only  the  necessary  result  of  an 
actual  development ;  the  theory  of  dogma  has 
been  deduced  from  the  concrete  realization  of 
dogma ;  the  former  is  the  abstract  idea,  or,  as  it 
were,  the  reflection  of  the  latter. 

A  full  account  of  the  history  of  this  develop- 
ment cannot  be  given  here.  It  must  suffice  to 
indicate  some  of  the  characteristic  stages  of  the 
evolution  which  established  dogma  as  an  obliga- 
tory belief  decreed  by  an  infallible  church  and 
sanctioned  by  an  absolute  state. 

The  first  important  fact  to  be  noted  is  the  pro- 
gressive approximation  of  the  Christian  religion 
to  philosophical  knowledge.  Under  the  influence 
of  the  Hellenic  spirit,  theology  endeavored  to 

*G.  FROMMEL,  Revue  chretienne,  1894,  p.  49. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  1 9 

transform  moral  and  religious  truth  into  an  ob- 
jective and  impersonal  creed.  Is  it  necessary  to 
demonstrate  that,  in  the  thought  of  Jesus  and 
the  apostles,  Christian  truth  was  not  independent 
of  the  affections  of  the  heart  and  of  the  deter- 
minations of  the  will  ?  It  implies,  for  its  recog- 
nition and  acceptance,  a  moral  and  religious 
disposition  of  the  subject;  it  is  eminently  per- 
sonal ;  to  assimilate  and  propagate  it  there  is  need 
of  souls  thirsting  for  righteousness,  consciences 
that  render  homage  to  the  supremacy  of  moral 
obligation,  lives  that  aspire  to  a  realization  of  the 
ideal.  Therefore  are  repentance  and  faith  the 
strait  gate  into  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  therefore 
are  childlike  hearts  first  in  the  kingdom  ;  there- 
fore, when  God  wished  to  reveal  unto  us  the 
moral  and  religious  life  in  all  its  fullness,  he  raised 
up  in  our  midst  a  perfect  personality,  a  perfectly 
illumined  consciousness,  shining  as  the  sun  which 
bears  healing  and  light  in  its  rays.  Such  is  the 
essential  character  of  the  Christian  truth.  The 
Apologists  and  Greek  Fathers  committed  a 
strange  and  fatal  error  when,  transporting  into 
the  religious  sphere  the  processes  of  ancient 
metaphysics,  they  tried  to  msrice  of  the  Christian 
faith  an  objective  science  of  revealed  things,  an 
impersonal  and  transcendental  philosophy,  a  su- 
premely rational  theory  supplementing  and  cor- 
recting human,  finite  wisdom.  According  to  these 


20  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

teachers,  Christian  certitude  and  natural  certitude 
are  not  different  in  kind  ;  they  differ  in  degree, 
not  in  nature.  Moreover,  the  Fathers,  like  the 
teachers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  after  they  had  put 
religious  knowledge  on  a  precise  level  with 
philosophical  and  scientific  knowledge,  undertook 
to  force  both  into  a  unitary,  magnificent  system, 
a  vast  encyclopedia  embracing  at  once  physics 
and  ethics,  psychology  and  theodicy,  God  and 
man,  heaven  and  earth.  Is  it  strange  that, 
under  these  conditions,  faith  became  more  and 
more  a  mere  creed  cut  off  from  the  moral  life 
and  needing  the  external  complement  of  works 
and  priestly  manipulation? 

While,  under  the  sway  of  Greek  Philosophy, 
1  was  being  resolved  into  an  elementary 
*  the  formation  of  the  Catholic  church  in- 
volved still  other  consequences.  In  order  to 
make  a  defense  against  heresies  and  to  react 
against  the  alterations  of  Christianity,  the 
churches  expressed  their  tradition  in  rules  of 
faith;  they  fixed  the  canon  of  inspired  books; 
they  affirmed  the  bond  which  united  them  and 
the  line  which  separated  them  from  the  gnos- 
tics ;  they  realized  outwardly  their  solidarity  in  the 
episcopate  and  announced  it  by  claiming  the  at- 
tributes of  unity,  catholicity,  apostolicity.  Each 
of  these  attributes  contains,  in  the  germ,  the 

'Faith.  "  Knowledge. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  2 1 

claim  of  infallibility.  The  creeds  proclaimed  by 
the  councils,  the  confessions  formulated  by  them, 
were  considered  to  be  revealed  truths ;  they 
exacted  the  assent  of  all  the  faithful ;  to  reject 
them  was  to  bring  down  upon  oneself  the  blow 
of  the  condemnation  and  anathema  of  the 
church.  It  was  also  to  deprive  oneself  of 
Roman  citizenship,  since,  after  the  fourth  century, 
religious  and  ecclesiastical  excommunication 
involved  civil  and  political  condemnation-.  The 
Code  of  Justinian  required  of  every  citizen  of 
the  empire  adherence  to  the  symbols  of  Nicaea, 
Constantinople,  Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon.  Faith 
{fides}  was  identified  with  the  rule  of  faith  (lex 
fidei] .  Thus  was  established  the  traditional  con- 
ception of  dogma,  which  ruled  in  the  Greek  and 
Roman  church,  and  which  was  expressed  alike 
in  the  significance  which  both  political  and  eccle- 
siastical language  gave  to  the  term  "  dogma." 

It  is  very  evident,  in  effect,  that  dogma,  in 
its  precise  and  historic  sense,  is  nothing  other 
than  a  creed  officially  defined  and  formulated  by 
a  competent  authority,  that  is  to  say,  in  this 
case,  by  the  church  going  hand  in  hand  with  the 
State.  History  does  not  authorize  us  to  call 
every  scientific  expression  of  religious  faith  a 
dogma ;  it  is  necessary  to  reserve  that  name  for  a 
formula  which  has  acquired  the  force  of  law  in 
the  church,  and  which  participates  in  the  authori- 


22  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

ty  of  that  church.  This  is  not  an  arbitrary 
definition;  it  grows  necessarily  out  of  the  histori- 
cal development  of  the  notion  and  the  term 
"  dogma."  Nor  is  it  an  idle  definition,  for  it  is 
far  from  being  generally  received,  and  it  is  fore- 
seen that  it  will  occasion  many  objections. 

These  objections  are  inspired  and  dominated 
apparently  by  the  very  strong  belief  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  definition  given,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  have  dogmas,  except  in  the  closed 
camp  of  Greek  and  Roman  Catholicism.  More- 
over, neither  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century  nor  the  later  Protestantism  meant  to 
renounce  dogma.  A  coat  of  arms  proclaiming  a 
Christianity  without  dogma  arouses  the  most 
serious  opposition  from  the  ranks  on  all  sides. 
The  very  existence  of  Protestant  dogmatics 
seems  to  give  force  to  this  opposition.  Never 
will  the  churches  which  issued  from  the  Refor- 
mation inscribe  upon  their  banners  the  useless- 
ness  of  dogma. 

What  must  we  conclude?  This:  that  doctrine 
has  a  different  value  for  Protestants  than  for 
Greek  and  Roman  Catholics  ;  that  our  concep- 
tion of  dogma  is  different  from  the  traditional 
notion  born  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Scholastics ; 
that  the  idea  of  dogma  has  been  transformed  in 
the  Protestant  church. 

We  shall  try  to  show  this. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  TRANSFORMATION  OF  THE  IDEA  OF  DOGMA  IN 
THE  PROTESTANT  CHURCH. 

I.  Absolute  contradiction  between  the  traditional  idea  of  dogma 
and  the  religious  principle  of  Protestantism. —  How  this  contradic- 
tion is  shown  in  the  notion  of  faith,  in  the  idea  of  the  church,  and 
in  the  conception  of  religious  authority. —  The  problem  which  the 
Reformation  imposes  upon  Protestant  theology :  the  destruction 
of  the  traditional  notion  of  dogma  does  not  imply  doctrinal 
indifference. 

II.  Necessity  of  a  dogmatic  expression  of  the  Protestant  faith. — 
The  relative,  not  absolute,  value  of  doctrinal  formula. —  Dogmatic 
activity  a  function  of  the  life  of  the  church. —  Twofold  character 
of  this  activity. —  Doctrine  is  indispensable  to  the  spiritual  wel- 
fare of  the  church,  and  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  propagating 
Christian  truth,  of  assisting  the  practical  ministry  of  the  pastor, 
of  facilitating  the  settlement  of  confessional  and  ecclesiastical 
disputes. —  Apologetic  and  polemic  importance  of  dogma  in  the 
conflict  of  the  church  with  her  external  adversaries. 

III.  Characteristics  of  the  Protestant  conception  of  dogma. — 
'  Dogma  the  scientific  expression  of  the  faith  of  the  Protestant 
church  at  a  given  time. —  Analysis  and  justification  of  this  defi- 
nition. 

I. 

The  traditional  conception  of  dogma  which 
we  have  established  by  means  of  the  threefold 
philological,  psychological,  and  historical  analy- 
sis is  presented  in  its  complete  form  only  in  the 
Catholic  church;  there  it  appears  in  all  its  strength, 
shows  its  true  import,  and  develops  its  fullest 
consequences.  In  order  to  understand  its  com- 
23 


24  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO . 

plete  significance  it  is  necessary  to  consider  it  in 
its  own  environment,  and  point  out  the  bond 
which  attaches  it  to  the  general  conception  of 
that  church.1 

God  has  granted  to  men  his  revelation  in  a 
precise,  fixed,  and  unchangeable  form.  Now,  he 
could  not  have  given  his  revelation  without  at 
the  same  time  having  given  a  sure  means  of  appre- 
hending it.  This  means  or  medium  is  the  church. 
One,  universal,  tangible,  known  to  all.  Infalli- 
ble, it  excludes  doubt  as  well  as  error.  Else- 
where, man  finds  himself  on  the  ground  of  rela- 
tive, and  consequently  uncertain,  truths.  The 
church  places  him  in  possession  of  absolute  truth. 
That  truth  is  absolutely  objective  and  impersonal, 
therefore  certain  for  all  men  ;  it  ought,  therefore, 
to  be  received  by  all.  The  acceptance  of  truth 
received  from  the  hands  of  the  church  —  that  is 
faith.  This  faith  is  essentially  an  implicit  faith; 
it  has  been  reduced,  little  by  little,  to  a  single 
article,  the  creed  of  the  infallible  authority  of  the 
church,  and  the  duty  of  submission  to  it.  To 

1  To  be  sure,  that  conception  of  dogma  was  not  formed  sud- 
denly, and  Bovon  says,  with  reason,  that  in  the  ancient  church 
those  teachers  even  less  inclined  to  favor  liberty,  even  those  who 
contributed  most  to  the  strengthening  of  Catholic  tradition,  did 
not  understand  dogma  in  the  exterior  and  legal  sense  of  later 
Catholicism  (Dogmatique  chretienne,  I,  pp.  7-11);  but  we  can, 
nevertheless,  examine  here  the  history  of  the  traditional  idea 
of  dogma,  and  trace  it  directly  to  the  limits  of  its  evolution,  that 
is,  to  the  fixed  and  official  conception  sanctioned  by  Catholicism. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  25 

believe,  for  a  Catholic,  is  to  admit  everything 
which  the  church  has,  does,  and  will  decide;  to 
admit  it  with  closed  eyes,  and  without  even 
knowing  in  what  these  decisions  consist.  The 
Catholic  believes  by  proxy.  Faith,  in  this  sys- 
tem, is  a  blank  check  which  the  believer  delivers 
to  the  church,  and  which  the  latter  presumes  to 
fill  in.  Finally,  the  top  sheaf  of  this  system  is 
this  :  the  church,  claiming  for  herself  absolute 
truth  and  certitude,  does  not  need  to  enter  into 
debate  ;  she  merely  affirms.  Only  prejudice  and 
bad  faith  can  deny  her  divinity.  Therefore,  un- 
belief (dissent)  becomes  the  most  culpable  way- 
wardness, and  chastisements  present  themselves 
as  a  means,  as  legitimate  as  efficacious,  for  the 
opening  of  the  heretic's  eyes.  Wherever  the  tem- 
poral power  is  ready  to  lend  a  hand  to  the  church, 
orthodoxy  is  the  foundation  of  common  law,  and 
religious  error  is  placed  under  the  ban  of  nations. 

What,  then,  is  dogma  in  this  closed  system  of 
affirmations,  or,  rather,  of  pretentions  ?  Here  is 
a  curious  thing :  Catholicism  has  at  the  same 
time  canonized  dogma  in  theory  and  neutralized 
it  in  practice. 

On  one  hand,  in  effect,  each  dogma,  that  is, 
each  doctrinal  decision  of  the  church,  is  a  revealed 
truth,  absolutely  free  from  error ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Catholic  believes  less  in  dogmas  than 
in  the  church.  In  the  different  articles  of  the 


26  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Credo  is  it  not  the  church  which  the  believer  sees, 
finds  disclosed?  Is  it  not  the  church  that  he 
honors?  Although  a  Catholic  may  recognize  all 
the  Christian  dogmas,  yet  the  church,  in  all  these 
dogmas,  would  be  the  real  object  upon  which  he 
would  fix  his  belief.  That  is,  in  the  Catholic 
system,  particular  dogmas  have,  in  fact,  lost  their 
importance  and  their  practical  significance;  in 
truth,  the  church  demands  of  her  children  only 
one  article  of  faith,  namely,  submission  to  the 
church.  Some  believe  more,  others  less ;  no 
matter,  provided  they  all  agree  to  the  funda- 
mental dogma  of  the  church.1 

The  Reformation  broke  in  principle  with  all 
legal  authority,  exterior  to  the  conscience  of  the 
believer ;  for  that  very  reason  it  renounced  im- 
plicitly the  traditional  idea  of  dogma,  a  decree 
supernaturally  inspired  by  God  and  promulgated 
by  an  infallible  church. 

In  attempting  to  expose  the  contradiction  be- 

1  See  what  Calvin  wrote  in  the  preface  of  his  Christian 
Institutes,  addressed  to  Francis  I.:  "  They  easily  permit  both 
themselves  and  others  to  ignore,  neglect,  and  despise  the  true 
religion,  which  is  given  to  us  by  the  Scriptures,  and  which  ought 
to  be  established  among  all ;  likewise,  whatever  anyone  may  hold 
or  may  not  hold  concerning  God  and  Christ,  he  must  submit  his 
mind,  in  implicit  faith,  so  they  say,  to  the  judgment  of  the  church. 
And  they  do  not  care  much  if  the  glory  of  God  be  polluted  by 
open  blasphemies,  provided  that  no  one  utters  a  word  against  the 
authority  of  our  holy  mother-church,  that  is,  according  to  their 
real  meaning,  against  the  seat  of  Rome"  (Corp,  Reform.,  II,  14). 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2  7 

tween  the  traditional  notion  of  dogma  and  the 
religious  principle  of  Protestantism,  I  am  careful 
not  to  forget  that  Protestants  have  acquired  only 
little  by  little  the  consciousness  of  this  principle 
and  of  the  consequences  flowing  from  it.  The  Re- 
formers themselves  were  ignorant  of  the  full  extent 
of  the  work  which  they  accomplished.  Like  the 
Catholic  church,  they  attached  very  great  im- 
portance to  the  unity  of  doctrine  ;  they  estimated 
themselves  as  the  defenders  of  orthodoxy.  They 
naively  thought,  not  that  they  had  substituted  a 
new  church  for  the  old,  but  that  they  had  restored 
to  the  church  her  primitive  purity  and  had  re- 
newed the  chain  of  tradition  broken  by  the  secu- 
lar errors  of  the  papacy.  This  misapprehension 
is  not  surprising.  God's  plan  is  ever  larger  than 
the  purpose  of  the  men  who  are  called  to  execute 
it.  Luther,  Zwingli,  Calvin  opened  a  door 
which,  after  their  time,  remained  open,  never  to 
be  closed  by  anyone,  and  through  which  we  may 
assuredly  enter  today  without  bearing  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  opinions  of  Calvin,  Zwingli,  or 
Luther. 

To  show  the  abiding  contradiction  between 
the  traditional  idea  of  dogma  and  the  very  es- 
sence of  Protestantism,  it  suffices  to  recall  what 
are,  according  to  Protestants,  the  characteristic 
attributes  of  faith,  of  the  church,  and  of  religious 
authority.  To  answer  this  threefold  question 


28  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

will  be  to  disclose  the  profound  antinomy  exist- 
ing between  the  Catholic  notion  of  dogma  and 
the  Protestant  conception  of  the  Gospel. 

Faith,  according  to  Protestantism,  is  not  mere 
consent.  To  believe  is  not  to  adhere  to  an  exter- 
nal authority,  on  the  foundation  of  a  testimony 
foreign  to  the  consciousness  of  the  believer. 
Faith  is  an  essentially  personal  conviction,  deter- 
mined by  motives  of  a  spiritual  order.  To  be- 
lieve is  to  have  confidence  in  the  grace  of  God 
revealed  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  object  of  faith, 
that  is  to  say,  the  Gospel,  is  at  the  same  time  the 
author  of  faith,  that  is,  the  divine  power  which 
attests  itself  in  the  consciousness  of  the  believer, 
in  revealing  itself  by  means  of  its  redemptive  and 
sanctifying  effects.  In  this  mysterious  work  of 
faith,  not  one  of  man's  faculties  remains  inactive ; 
the  sentiment,  the  intelligence,  the  will  partici- 
pate in  that  inner  act,  solicited  by  the  objective 
factor  of  a  revelation  which  at  the  same  time 
frees  and  binds  the  subject;  everything  here  bears 
a  moral  and  spiritual  stamp.  In  the  eyes  of  the 
Protestant,  what  Catholicism  means  by  faith, 
"implicit,  unconscious,  empty  faith,  is  only  the 
absence  of  faith."1  True,  living  faith  is  God 
made  known  to  the  mind  and  heart ;  it  is  the  di- 
vine Spirit  giving  testimony  to  our  spirit ;  it  is  the 
Lord  immanent  in  the  soul  of  the  believer.  From 

'E.  SCH^RER,  Op,  Clt.,  p.  70. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  29 

the  moment  of  this  testimony  in  the  spirit  of  the 
believer,  all  dualism  between  faith  and  piety  or 
the  Christian  life  is  impossible,  or  at  least  is  con- 
quered in  principle.  In  the  Catholic  church  faith 
is  without  necessary  relationship  to  the  Christian 
life;  one  may  adhere  to  the  Catholic  tradition 
and  submit  himself  to  its  authority  without  ex- 
periencing  the  least  movement  of  inner  piety, 
without  being  awakened  to  the  divine  and  spiritu- 
al  life,  nay,  even  while  continuing  a  dissolute 
and  immoral  life.  From  the  Protestant  point  of 
view,  such  a  divorce  between  faith  and  the  reli- 
gious life  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  If  it  is  true 
that  to  believe  is  to  yield  oneself  to  God,  to  be- 
lieve  is  also  to  live  for  God  and  in  God.  In  the 
measure  in  which  the  Protestant  separates  him- 
self  from  communion  with  God  he  ceases  to  be 
Christian,  he  loses  faith ;  he  may  be  orthodox, 
he  will  not  be  a  believer.  This  religious  concep-  \ 
tion  of  inner  and  personal  faith  is  the  great  spir-  \ 
itual  conquest  of  the  Reformation ;  it  marks  the  j 
authentic  return  to  the  religious  thought  of  Jesus 
and  to  the  fundamental  inspiration  of  apostolic 
theology.  At  the  same  time  it  implies  a  break 
with  the  Catholic  system.  If  faith  is  an  indiyktu-  \ 
al  act,  an  inner  decision  of  the  will,  an,4rrirma-  \ 
tion  of  our  character  of  moral  and'  religious 
personality,  it  is  irreconcilable  with  a  doctrine 
which  makes  of  faith  a  theoretical  belief  and  a 


30  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

passive  submission ;  hence  it  cannot  agree  with 
a  conception  according  to  which  dogma  would 
be  merely  an  infallible  decree,  exacting  the  sac- 
rifice of  intelligence  and  imposing  itself  from 
without  upon  the  enslaved  reason. 

If  the  traditional  notion  of  dogma  and  the 
Protestant  idea  of  faith  absolutely  exclude  each 
other,  then  the  same  antinomy  maintains  between 
the  Catholic  theory  of  dogma  and  the  Protestant 
conception  of  the  church. 

The  church,  for  the  Protestant,  is  not,  as  for 
the  Catholic,  an  organism  of  supernatural  graces, 
the  repository  and  administration  of  which  have 
been  confined  to  a  privileged  body;  neither  is  it 
a  vast  system  of  divine  guaranties,  calculated  to 
assure  salvation  to  those  who  throw  themselves 
with  abandon  into  the  maternal  arms  of  the 
church.  No ;  Protestants  see  in  the  church  the 
communion  oj  believers,  and  they  recognize  as 
Christian  every  church  in  which  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel  awakens  and  quickens  a  living  faith. 
The  center  of  gravity  of  the  church  does  not  rest 
in  the  sacerdotal  hierarchy  which  governs  the 
mass  of  believers,  but  in  the  divine  Word  which 
produces  faith  in  the  heart.  Not  the  clergy,  but 
Christians,  are  the  church.  Therefore,  infalli- 
bility is  not  an  attribute  miraculously  conferred 
upon  a  person  or  a  group  of  persons,  pope  or 
council ;  it  appertains  to  the  church  only  in  the 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  3 1 

measure  in  which  the  latter  remains  faithful  to 
the  Gospel.  Moreover,  the  church  has  not  the 
right  to  set  herself  up  as  a  sovereign  by  publish- 
ing decrees  after  the  manner  of  a  legal  institution; 
she  has  no  other  mission  than  that  of  declaring 
the  Gospel ;  she  is  not  an  absolute  ruler,  she  is  a 
docile  bearer  of  testimony.  Doubtless  she  feels 
under  moral  obligation  to  possess  and  declare 
the  truth,  but  she  is  also  sensible  that  she  bears 
divine  treasure  in  earthen  vessels  (2  Cor.  4:7). 
Again,  Protestantism  is  careful  not  to  identify 
the  formulas  of  ecclesiastical  dogma  with  the  per- 
fect revelation  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  Although 
our  Reformers  were  convinced  that  they  had 
brought  out  into  the  light  the  truth  announced 
to  the  world  by  the  Savior  and  his  apostles,  they 
declared  themselves  none  the  less  ready  to  admit 
their  error  as  soon  as  it  could  be  pointed  out  to 
them  that  their  ideas  were  not  in  accord  with  the 
pure  Gospel*  How  could  such  a  conception, 
how  could  this  Protestant  idea  of  the  church,  be 
framed  into  the  traditional  idea  of  dogma  elabo- 
rated by  Catholicism? 

There  is  a  second  striking  contradiction  be- 
tween this  idea  and  the  Protestant  notion  of 
religious  authority.  At  this  point,  especially,  the 
Reformation  has  not  been  consistent  with  itself 
nor  faithful  to  the  principle  which  it  represents. 
At  first  sight  it  would  seem  that  it  maintained 


32  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

the  conception  of  legal  and  literal  authority, 
since  it  substituted  the  norm  of  Holy  Scripture 
for  the  rule  of  tradition.  But,  if  we  look  farther 
and  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter,  we  shall 
easily  see  that  Protestantism  has  profoundly 
transformed  the  evangelical  notion  of  authority 
in  matters  of  faith.  To  be  convinced  of  this  it 
suffices  to  recall  to  mind  the  foundation  which 
Protestants  give  to  the  authority  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. That  foundation  is  not  the  suffrage  of 
tradition;  it  is  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
which,  in  the  heart  of  the  believer,  responds  to 
the  divine  inspiration  of  the  sacred  writers,  and 
realizes  between  the  Christian  consciousness  and 
revealed  truth  a  relation  of  profound  affinity  and 
holy  correspondence.  How  great  a  difference, 
thus,  between  authority  in  the  Catholic  sense  and 
the  authority  to  which  Protestant  faith  adheres  ! 
Authority,  in  Catholicism,  is  the  pope,  councils, 
the  infallible  church,  tradition  which,  emanating 
from  Jesus  Christ  and  the  apostles,  has  trans- 
mitted itself  through  the  centuries  and  possesses 
in  the  head  of  the  church  its  inspired  organ  and 
permanent  interpreter.  Such  an  authority  com- 
mands obedience;  as  a  real  power,  it  imposes 
itself  upon  the  intellect  and  the  will,  upon  the 
senses  and  the  imagination.  In  exchange  for  the 
submission  which  it  demands,  it  promises  a 
security  which  frees  the  individual  from  all  per- 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  3  3 

sonal  responsibility  and  assures  to  him  a  conven- 
ient tutelage  and  a  constant  prop.  Do  not  ask 
what  is  the  foundation  of  such  authority.  "  The 
Roman  church  is  in  possession,  and,  in  the  last 
analysis,  it  has  no  other  titles.  While  one  dis- 
cusses her  rights,  she  exercises  them.  To  any 
who  demand  reasons  for  her  existence  she  an- 
swers by  her  existence."  *  Protestantism  would 
accomplish  its  own  suicide  if  it  followed  the 
method  practiced  by  Rome.  For  the  exterior 
rule  promulgated  by  the  church  it  substitutes  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  Gospel,  that  is,  of  the 
Word  revealing  th"e~love  oPXjod  in  Jesus  Christ ; 
in  the  place  of  the  law  which  regulates  and 
checks,  it  puts  the  spirit  which  inspires  and  per- 
suades. Thus  transformed,  authority  becomes  at 
once  more  imperative  and  more  intimate;  it  is  a 
manifestation  of  the  intrinsic  force  of  truth,  a 
demonstration  of  the  spirit  and  of  power ;  it  is 
"  the  conquering  shaft  which  penetrates  into  the 
depths  of  the  soul,  the  sovereign  anointing 
which  appeases  the  agitations  and  heals  the 
wounds  of  the  heart."  2  Is  it  not  evident  that 
between  the  spiritual  authority  thus  conceived 
and  the  traditional  idea  of  dogma  accredited  by 
the  Catholic  church  there  is  an  abyss  which 
nothing  can  fill  ? 

Let    one  gather    up    these    briefly    indicated 

1  E.  SCHERER,  op.cit.,p.  31.          *Ibid.,  pp.  31,48-49. 


34  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

characteristics,  let  him  consider  the  profound  dif- 
ference which  separates  the  Catholic  and  the  Prot- 
estant doctrines  of  faith,  of  the  church,  and  of 
authority  in  religious  matters;  he  will  then  recog- 
nize that  the  traditional  definition  of  dogma,  an 
obligatory  decree  promulgated  by  an  infalli- 
ble church,  is  in  flagrant  contradiction  to  the 
essence  of  Protestantism.  If  that  definition 
which,  without  doubt,  is  derived  from  history, 
were  to  be  maintained,  if  there  must  be  a  cor- 
rect and  definite  expression  of  dogma,  if  it  were 
not  permitted  to  depart  from  that  tradition 
which  the  past  centuries  have  left  to  us,  then 
it  would  be  necessary  to  conclude  that  dogma 
in  itself  is  incompatible  with  the  Protestant 
principle ;  it  would  be  necessary  to  affirm,  with 
Harnack,  that  the  Reformation  made  an  end  of 
dogma. 

I  have  already  indicated  above1  that  this  rea- 
soning seems  to  me  to  rest  on  inadmissible  prem- 
ises. That  dogma,  in  the  traditional  sense  of 
the  term,  dogma  defined  conformably  with  Cath- 
olic principle,  may  be  in  flagrant  contradiction 
with  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  is  doubtless 
true,  and  on  that  point  history  approves  Harnack. 
But  are  we  justified  in  maintaining  that  the  gen- 
eral idea  of  dogma  and  its  historical  realization  are 
identical ;  that  Protestantism  absolutely  excludes 

1  See  Chap.  I,  §  III. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  35 

every  other  conception  of  dogma;  that  a  revision 
of  the  traditional  idea  is  impossible  ?  I  think 
not.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  me  that  in 
refusing  to  give  a  clear  and  strong  expression 
to  its  religious  faith  Protestantism  would  sub- 
scribe to  its  own  death-warrant  and  hasten  its 
ruin.  The  inner  necessity  which  constrains  it 
scientifically  to  formulate  its  faith  does  not 
condemn  it  to  an  illusory  and  impossible  task, 
since  it  contains  within  itself  all  the  elements 
of  a  renovation  of  the  Catholic  idea  of  dogma.1 
We  shall  then  have  to  answer  a  double  ques- 
tion :  Why  may  not  Protestantism  do  without  t 
dogma  ?  What  is  dogma  according  to  the  Protes- ' 
tant  principle  ? 

II. 

In  insisting  upon  the  necessity  of  giving 
to  religious  life  and  faith  a  scientific  expression, 
I  do  not  mean  to  maintain  that  each  Christian 
needs,  in  order  to  be  saved,  to  know  how  to  give 
an  account  of  his  convictions  and  be  able  to 
formulate  clearly  his  sentiments  and  beliefs. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual  religious 
life,  this  necessity  is  relative — necessitas  ordinata 
seu  conditionata,  non  absoluta,  as  our  early  theo- 

1  Bo  VON:  "It  is  important— lest  we  fail  to  do  justice  to 
the  Reformation  in  continuing  its  work  —  that  we  abondon  com- 
pletely the  idea  of  official  dogma,  which  is  a  mere  anachronism 
in  our  epoch." 


36  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

/logians  used  to  say.  That  which  saves  is  the 
grace  of  God  embraced  by  man's  faith,  not  the 
knowledge  or  science  of  Christian  doctrine.  Who 
has  not  known  souls  that  were  penetrated  by  a 
living  and  vigorous  piety ;  hearts  overflowing 
with  peace  and  love;  sincere,  ardent,  devout 
Christians  who  might  have  been  very  poor  theo- 
logians, incapable  of  demonstrating  or  even 
understanding  the  bond  which  united  their  reli- 
gious conceptions,  incapable  even  of  expressing  in 
words  the  inner  force  from  which  they  drew  their 
courage,  their  life,  and  their  joy  ?  That  inabili- 
ty to  reduce  to  well-ordered  theorems  the  con- 
tent of  their  hearts  did  not  affect  their  piety  in 
the  least ;  it  did  not  check  their  joy  nor  diminish 
their  fervor.  You  have  proved  the  truth  of  the 
word  of  the  pious  and  profound  Hamann :  "The 
pearl  of  Christianity  is  a  life  hidden  with  Christ 
in  God,  but  that  life  consists  neither  in  dogmas, 
nor  in  rites,  nor  in  formulas." 

»  Again,  in  order  to  propagate  and  communi- 

cate itself,  it  is  doubtless  necessary  that  religion 
should  clothe  itself  in  concrete  form,  that  it 
should  transmit  itself  in  concepts  and  words  ;  but 
these  words  and  concepts  have  "  value  only  in  so 
far  as  they  serve  as  the  expression  and  vehicle  of 
the  personal  life  of  the  subject.  There  is  the 

secret  and  mystery  of  eloquence The  true 

religious  propaganda  is  accomplished  by  moral 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  3  7 

contact.  Ex  vivo  vivus  nascitur." l  That  is  why 
there  are,  thank  God,  faithful  pastors,  convinced 
preachers,  displaying  a  blessed  activity,  winning 
souls  to  the  Gospel,  in  spite  of  their  very  insuffi- 
cient concepts  and  all  the  details  of  Christian 
doctrine.  The  practice  of  a  humble  reading  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  knowledge  of  their  own 
hearts,  the  treasury  of  experiences  amassed  in 
the  course  of  their  ministry,  prayer,  a  full  and 
profound  Christian  life,  give  to  their  testimony 
an  inner  force  which  subjugates  wills  and  wins 
consciences.  "Correctness of  theology  is  of  less 
importance  in  religion  than  fervor  of  piety.  Piti- 
ful arguments  have  produced  admirable  conver- 
sions in  all  times."2 

This  is  not  surprising.*  If  Christianity  were 
in  essence  a  theory,  if  the  Word  of  God  had 
reduced  itself  to  a  system  of  supernatural  con- 
ceptions, it  would  be  important  above  all  to 
formulate  dogmatically  the  Christian  truth  ;  doc- 
trinal correctness  would  be  the  first  of  all  duties, 
the  sine  qua  non  of  piety,  the  means  par  excellence 
of  salvation ;  the  intensity  of  our  Christianity 
would  be  in  direct  ratio  to  the  fullness  and  clear- 
ness of  our  concepts,  to  the  force  and  virtuosity 

'SABATIER,  Revue  de  theologie,  1893,  p.  2 1 8;  Revue  chrttienne, 
II  (1893),  pp.  396,  397. 

'SABATIER,  ibid.,  pp.  219,  397. 

3SCHLEIERMACHER,  Der  christliche  Glaube,  §3,  no.  4. 


38  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  our  dialectic ;  each  Christian  would  have  to 
be,  at  least  in  a  certain  measure,  initiated  into  the 
problems  of  theological  science;  the  believer 
would  be  duplicated  as  a  dogmatician.  We 
praise  God  that  it  is  otherwise.  His  revelation  is 
addressed  to  the  conscience,  to  the  will,  to  the 
heart;  the  certitude  which  it  demands  and  which 
it  produces  is  of  the  moral  order,  not  the  scien- 
tific. To  comprehend  and  develop  a  doctrine, 
the  intellect,  the  memory,  facility  of  exposition 
and  speech,  the  natural  gifts  of  mind,  may  suffice  ; 
to  be  a  Christian,  to  have  part  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  one  must  be  born  from  above,  he  must  be 
animated  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  must  belong  to 
Christ.  Between  these  two  domains  there  is  an 
abyss. 

No  one  will  accuse  me,  I  think,  of  overesti- 
mating the  value  of  the  doctrinal  element  and 
exaggerating  its  importance  ;  dogmatism  and 
intellectualism,  fatal  to  piety,  are  likewise  fatal 
to  Christian  theology.  But  without  falling  into 
these  errors,  one  may  and  ought  to  affirm  that 
faith  needs  to  give  itself  clear  and  faithful 
expression,  exact  and  complete,  in  a  body  of 
doctrines,  in  a  theological  organism,  in  dog- 
matics.1 
i  Dogmatics  is  not  for  Protestantism  an  article 

*Cf.  SMITH,  "Dogma  in  Religion"  (Andover  Review,  1891, 
pp.  491-508).       • 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  39 

of  luxury  which  it  could  do  without ;  far  from  t 
it :  rightly  understood,  it  is   a  manifestation  of  I 
the  activity    of   the    church,   a   function    of    its  \ 
peculiar  life.     In   scientifically  formulating  the 
faith  which  it  lives,  the  church  labors  directly  in 
the  accomplishment  of  the  work  which  falls  to 
its  domain  ;  the  scientific  elaboration  of  its  reli- 
gious convictions  is  one  of  the  elements  of  the 
mission  confided   to  it,  with  regard   to  its  own 
members  as  well  as  with  reference  to  the  world. 

In  effect,  the  dogmatic  task  imposed  upon  the 
church  has  two  points  of  view  :  On  one  hand, 
the  church  draws  from  dogmatic  science  the 
resources  which  it  needs  that  it  may  nourish  its 
intellectual  life  and  solve  whatever  difficulties 
may  arise  within  it ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  will 
find  there  the  weapons  necessary  for  opposing 
the  adversaries  without,  and  for  exercising  its 
ministry  in  the  world. 

We  will  examine  first  that  which  we  might 
call  the  inner  necessity  of  dogmatic  work  on  the 
part  of  the  church.  The  church  needs  dogma 
in  order  to  fulfil  its  vocation  with  reference  to 
the  believers  who  constitute  it. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show,  first,  that  the  idea 
of  faith,  properly  understood,  implies,  not  an 
exterior  and  official  duty,  but  rather  an  immanent 
obligation  to  give  clear  and  precise  expression 
to  the  personal  experiences  of  the  Christian  con- 


40  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

sciousness.     In  religious  faith,  there  is  revealed 
the  indissoluble  unity  of  the  moral  personality, 
the  indestructible  solidarity  of  the  faculties  of 
the  soul ;  sentiment,  thought,  will  are  the  con- 
stituent elements  of  faith,  because  they  are  the 
elements  of  the  personal  life.     Man,  because  he 
is    spiritually   organized,  could    not    have    faith 
without  thinking  it  under  some  form.    Faith  pre-  f 
supposes  and  implies  always  an  intellectual  ele-i 
ment  which  could  not  exist  in  a  state  of  pure  \ 
indetermination,  and    which    necessarily    creates  | 
for  itself  a  concrete  expression.     Every  attempt 
to  eliminate   thought    from    the    religious    con-     • 
sciousness    of    the    believer    is   a   psychological 
impossibility  and  amounts  to  a  mutilation  of  the 
spiritual  life. 

But  we  are  not  treating  here  the  religious 
life  of  the  individual ;  rather  of  the  Christian 
community,  the  collective  life  of  the  church. 
iNow,  in  order  to  attain  to  a  knowledge  and  com- 
\prehension  of  itself,  in  order  to  understand  the 
pivine  riches  which  have  been  deposited  within 
\jt,  and  to  render  an  account  of  the  faith  which  is 
its  life,  the  church  cannot  dispense  with  the 
scientific  formulation  of  the  religious  convictions 
which  serve  as  the  bond  between  its  members : 
it  is  necessary,  therefore,  that  the  church  should 
make  a  system  of  dogmatics.  To  neglect  or 
renounce  that  work,  either  through  indifference 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  4 1 

or  because  of  prejudice  in  favor  of  some  particu- 
lar system,  is  to  compromise  the  very  life  which 
the  church  pretends  to  safeguard ;  it  is  an  injury 
to  this  faith  to  attempt  to  maintain  it  in  a  state 
of  pure  principle,  of  bare  and  indetermined  re- 
ligion. Instead  of  saying:  "  Christianity  is  a  life, 
it  can  accordingly  U^d^&i^mlf  into  dogma,"  it 
is  necessary  to  say:  "  Because  Christianity  is  a 
life  which  began  by  incarnating  itself  in  a  his- 
tory, we  have  need  of  a  dogma."  Indifference 
to  dogmatics  would  be,  in  effect,  to  refuse  to 
acknowledge,  to  obscure,  or  to  depreciate  the 
revealed  and  redemptive  facts  which  form  the 
objective  and  historical  part  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. In  other  words,  dogmatic  ignorance  or 
hostility  toward  dogma  would  lead  to  a  fanciful 
and  cloudy  mysticism  or  to  a  disintegrating  and 
deadly  scepticism.  In  refusing  to  express  clearly 
his  faith,  one  would  soon  come  to  substitute  for 
distinct  and  intelligible  thoughts  either  reveries 
compatible  with  the  states  of  his  soul,  perhaps 
hardly  at  all  Christian,  or  notions  contradictory 
to  the  foundations  of  Christianity.  To  conserve 
healthy  and  intact  the  life  which  courses  in  its 
veins,  to  assure  the  normal  functioning  of  that 
life,  to  permit  it  to  renew  itself  at  the  sources 
which  nourish  it,  to  recall  constantly  to  evan- 
gelical faith  the  fact  that  it  draws  its  content,  its 
inner  life,  and  its  force  from  the  Gospel  —  that  is 


42  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

to  say,  from  a  fact  at  once  both  human  and  di- 
vine, from  a  Person  who  dominates  history  and 
who  ought  to  transform  our  history — in  short, 
to  live,  to  grow,  and  develop  itself,  the  church 
needs  to  think  its  life  and  speak  its  thought,  to 
express  it,  not  only  in  prayers,  songs,  and  preach- 
ing, but  again,  and  above  all,  in  doctrine. z  Indis- 
pensable to  the  life,  to  the  health,  to  the  spiritual 
belief  of  the  church,  doctrine  is  also  necessary 
to  it  for  the  communication  of  the  verity  which 
it  professes.  I  retract  nothing  of  what  I  said 
above  concerning  religious  propaganda  which 
takes  place  by  moral  contact ;  nevertheless,  to 
spread  and  prolong  itself  through  the  centuries, 
that  propaganda  implies  and  demands  instru- 
ments and  vehicles.  It  is  theological  thought  i 
which  furnishes  these  vehicles  and  instruments 
to  religious  sentiment.  The  purest  and  most 
elevated  sentiment  runs  the  risk  of  being  cor- 
rupted or  dissipated.  By  fixing  itself  in  a  dog- 
matic formula  it  is  exposed,  no  doubt,  to  the 
danger  of  becoming  rigid  or  petrified,  but  it  will 
regain  life  as  soon  as  it  comes,  through  these 

1 "  Dogma  is  a  necessary  product  of  the  life  created  by  the 
Gospel"  (BOVON).  "To  Christians,  engaged  as  we  are  in  an 
immense  crisis  whose  compass  it  would  be  puerile  to  wish  to 
limit,  the  conscientious  revision  of  the  foundations  of  faith  is  not 
a  digression  calculated  to  procure  for  us  an  intellectual  pastime: 
it  is  a  moral  necessity"  (Revue  theologique  de  Montauban,  1875- 
76,  p.  201). 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  43 

tutelary  vehicles,  into  contact  with  consciences 
and  hearts.1  Nay,  that  new  birth  itself  is  possi- 
ble only  where  the  primitive  Christian  experience 
has  been  passed  on  by  the  help  of  authentic 
means  which  serve  at  the  same  time  to  interpret 
and  to  transmit  it.  To  propagate  religion,  it 
is  necessary  that  souls  should  not  only  be  ardent, 
but  that  they  should  also  be  luminous. 

What  must  we  conclude  ?  This,  that  the 
practical  activity  of  the  pastor  will  be  enriched, 
will  gain  in  breadth,  in  depth,  in  solidity,  if  it 
remains  in  touch  with  the  scientific  work  of  the 
church,  of  which  dogma  is  one  of  the  most  pre- 
cious fruits.  Preaching  and  catechetical  teaching 
will  be,  in  general,  more  varied  and  fruitful  with 
the  minister  who  posesses  a  serious  theological 
culture  than  with  a  pastor  deprived  of  dogmatic 
instruction.  The  more  the  preacher  gives  an 
intellectual  account  of  his  faith,  the  more  he 
examines  the  dogmas  of  his  church,  so  much  the 
more  will  he  approach  being  practical  and  reli- 
gious in  his  pulpit  or  in  the  presence  of  youth, 
where  it  is  necessary  to  instruct.  Careful  to  draw 
the  line  between  theological  formula  and  the 
Christian  substance  of  doctrines,  he  will  be  the 
more  capable  of  retaining  and  showing  to  best 

1  SABATIER,  DC  la  vie  intime  des  dogmes,  p.  7  :  "  The  intel- 
lectual notion,  expressing  itself  with  the  help  of  imagination,  can 
serve  to  renew  or  fortify  an  emotion,  and  dogma  can  awaken 
piety." 


44  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

advantage  the  primitive  and  permanent  religious 
essentials,  accommodating  them  to  the  spiritual 
needs  of  his  hearers  and  to  the  infinitely 
varied  exigencies  of  his  time.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  pastor  who  has  neglected  to  submit  his 
piety  to  a  strong  intellectual  discipline  will  be 
exposed  to  two  dangers :  either  his  preaching 
and  teaching  will  be  the  monotonous  expression 
of  his  subjective  religiousness  and  his  individual 
piety,  or  he  will  be  satisfied  with  the  external 
and  routine  usage  of  traditional  formulas  of 
which  he  will  not  know,  how  to  penetrate  the 

•VwA'Kt  Xv4*.  %-    .    ,  r  T 

meaning  or  -explore,  the  riches.  Let  us  not 
fear,  then,  that  dogmatics  will  harm  the  sermon, 
the  catechism,  or  missionary  activity  among 
pagan  populations ;  undigested  dogmatism  in 
preaching  is  almost  always  a  direct  proof  of  the 
dogmatic  insufficiency  of  the  preacher. 

Finally,  a  last  service  which  the  church  ren- 
ders to  itself,  in  attempting  to  formulate  scientifi- 
cally its  religious  faith,  is  the  appeasing  of  con- 
fessional and  ecclesiastical  contentions,  the  bring- 
ing together  of  different  parties,  not  by  equivocal 
and  unnatural  compromises,  but  by  loyal  and 
fruitful  discussions.  All  progress  in  theological  \ 
studies  is  progress  in  the  cause  of  conciliation. 
Conscientious  and  disinterested  researches  after 
truth  establish  between  sincere  spirits,  of 
whatever  denomination,  a  strong  and  intimate 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  45 

bond,  a  communion  which  will  not  be  slow  to 
reveal  itself  to  those  without  and  to  manifest 
itself  in  the  life  of  the  church.  Exact  and 
scrupulous  examination  into  the  inner  life  of 
dogmas,  into  their  genesis  and  their  historical 
evolution,  always  facilitates  the  clear  distinction 
between  the  transient  shell  of  doctrines  and  their 
religious  kernel,  which  it  is  not  permitted  to  sac- 
rifice. In  separating  carefully  the  problems 
which  interest  only  the  school  from  the  truths 
which  are  of  direct  importance  to  the  church,  in 
pointing  out  the  profound  difference,  and  yet 
the  necessary  solidarity,  which  maintains  between 
religion  and  theology,  dogmatic  science  performs 
a  work  of  peace,  a  task  sincerely  and  sacredly 
evangelical. 

To  give  a  passing  thought  to  the  foregoing^ 
considerations  is  sufficient  to  convince  one  that 
orthodoxy  is  correct  in  that  it  affirms,  as  against 
all   forms   of    mysticism    and    rationalism,    the 
necessity  of  a  doctrinal  expression  ofJDhristianity,,/ 
thejiecessity  of  dogma.     To  condemn  in   prin- 
ciple or  to  neglect  in  practice  the  constitution  of 
a  religious  doctrine  is,  for  the  church,  to  refuse 
to  do  its  duty  with  regard  to  its  own  members ; 
it  is  a  traitorous  betrayal  of  its  own  cause. 

That  would  also  be  to  capitulate  to  her 
enemies  and  to  deliver  to  them,  with  her  en- 
sign, the  living  forces  which  have  brought  her 


46  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

to  life  and  nourished  her.  To  resist  her  enemies 
without,  and  to  accomplish  her  historical  mission 
and  religious  ministry,  Protestantism  is  compelled 
to  elaborate  a  system  of  doctrines.  This  is  the 
apologetical  and  polemical  value  of  dogma. 
Protestant  dogmatics,  it  is  true,  does  not  propose 
merely  to  give  a  scientific  exposition  of  the  Prot- 
estant faith ;  it  addresses  itself  to  believers,  and 
works  in  the  service  of  the  church;  it  has  not 
for  its  direct  object  a  polemic  justification  of  its 
principle  as  against  those  who  are  strangers  to 
its  faith,  or  a  systematic  refutation  of  the  doc- 
.  trines  which  are  contrary  to  it.  But,  in  the 
measure  in  which  dogmatic  science  shall  succeed 
in  bringing  to  organic  and  living  unity  the  reli- 
gious testimony  of  the  Protestant  consciousness, 
it  will  furnish  to  the  apologetics  of  the  evangel- 
ical faith  a  valuable  defense  and  a  positive 
contribution. 

However,  this  task  will  always  devolve  upon 
those  who  do  not  intend  to  break  with  Chris- 
tianity, but  who,  on  the  contrary,  try  to  represent 
its  true  principle  and  remain  faithful  to  the  spirit 
of  Christ  and  to  the  teaching  of  the  apostles. 
In  the  contest  with  the  Catholic  church  and  with 
the  sects  issuing  out  of  Protestantism,  our 
churches  will  not  advance  with  any  chance  of 
success  unless  they  succeed  in  clearly  formulating 
their  faith,  as  they  established  it  in  the  sixteenth 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  4  7 

century,  in  justifying  it  by  a  sane  and  scrupulous  I 
exegesis,  and  in  proving  it  on  the  testimony  of  1 
history.  By  taking  possession,  scientifically,  of 
the  spiritual  treasure  bequeathed  to  us  by  our 
fathers,  by  transforming  that  religious  heritage 
into  an  expression  appropriate  to  our  own  epoch, 
by  elaborating  concise  and  vigorous  formulas 
that  will  give  expression  to  the  religious  content 
of  our  Protestant  consciousness,  we  shall  provide 
ourselves  at  once  with  both  compass  and  ballast 
in  the  midst  of  the  current  opinions  which  trav- 
erse, wave-like,  our  times,  and  whose  impact  we 
feel  to  Ihe  very  /center  of  pur  churches.  We 

\A-  <L <.  A^y^g  /*-  CL  Z  _  ^n^-^— 

shall  be -exposed  to  thoughtless  fads  and  mortal 
fears.  A  startling  manifestation  of  the  religious 
life  or  a  novel  form  of  theological  thought  will 
not  suffice  to  overcome  the  trouble  and  disorder 
in  the  churches  and  in  the  hearts  of  believers  ; 
religious  tact,  the  fruit  of  Christian  experience, 
will  be  rendered  keener  by  intellectual  discern- 
ment, the  fruit  of  theological  culture  ;  dogmatics 
will  come  out  of  faith  itself,  and  faith  will  clarify 
itself  in  the  school  of  dogmatics. 

It  is  no  presumption  to  think  that  upon  the 
points  established  in  the  foregoing  pages  all 
Protestant  theologians  are  agreed.  If,  indeed, 
voices  have  been  raised  against  dogma,  if  some 
have  sought  to  maintain  that  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury made  an  end  of  Christian  dogmatics,  if 


48  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

some  have  demanded,  not  £  recasting  of  the  old 
Gospel,  but  a  revision  of  traditional  dogmatics, 
still  no  one  has  gone  so  far  as  to  maintain  that 
Protestantism  can  dispense  with  giving  its  faith 
a  clear  and  precise  expression.  The  attacks 
which  we  have  witnessed  have  been  aimed  either 
at  the  pretension  of  a  church  to  promulgate  an 
immutable  dogmatic  formulary  or  at  the  reign 
of  an  unyielding  and  intolerant  dogmatism.  But 
in  the  very  camp  of  those  who  repudiated  the 
errors  of  a  past  too  greatly  dominated  by  Catho- 
lic tradition,  no  one  has  ever  wished  to  resolve 
evangelical  faith  into  confused  and  indiscernible 
emotions ;  no  one  has  tried  to  renounce  the 
translation  of  that  faith  into  distinct  thoughts 
and  clear  and  forcible  words.  Such  is  notably 
the  point  of  view  of  the  French  theologians  who, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  have  been  christened  by  the 
name  of  the  "New  School;"  they  resent  the  fic- 
tion of  a  religion  in  a  pure  and  indeterminate 
state.  "It  is  perfectly  irrational,"  says  Sabatier, 
"to  talk  of  a  religion  without  dogma  and  without 
cult Moreover,  it  is  not  ridiculous  to  be- 
lieve the  hero  of  the  novel  who  said  he  could  not 
think  without  talking,  for  everybody  is  that  hero."1 

III. 

More  than  one   reader  will  doubtless  judge 
that  the  foregoing  arguments  have  advanced  us 

1  De  la  vie  intime  des  dogmes,  pp.  9,  10. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  49 

but  little,  and  that  the  results  attained  are  not 
proportionate  to  the  effort  put  forth.  Indeed, 
the  results  have,  at  first  sight,  a  critical  and  nega- 
tive import;  but  their  positive  value,  though  in- 
direct, is  not  less  real.  From  the  given  data  it 
is  easy  to  conclude  in  what  sense  and  under 
what  conditions  the  idea  of  dogma  is  compati- 
ble with  the  religious  principle  of  Protestant- 
ism. \ 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Protestant  it 
is  necessary  to  condemn  every  conception  which 
makes  of  dogma  an  authoritative  and  obligatory 
decision  of  the  church  in  the  sense  of  a  statu- 
tory and  legal  ordinance.  The  original  fault  of 
this  conception,  legalism,  has  been  conquered  in 
principle  by  the  evangelical  idea  of  inner  and  per- 
sonal faith.  Whether  one  reveres  dogma  as  an 
integral  part  of  a  cult,  as  an  element  of  the 
liturgy  and  the  priestly  mysteries,1  or  whether 
one  submits  himself  to  it  as  an  article  of  a  con- 
stitution promulgated  and  applied  by  the  hier- 
archy,2 it  matters  little  ;  under  either  form  the  ) 
Catholic  idea  of  dogma  is  opposed  to  the  very  / 
essence  of  Protestantism.  It  is  not  in  the  name 
of  reason,  or  of  criticism,  or  of  science,  but  in 
the  name  of  the  religious  faith  of  the  Protestant 
church,  that  we  repudiate  a  dogmatism  which,  ab- 

1  The  valuation  which  rules  in  the  Greek  Catholic  church. 
» The  point  of  view  familiar  to  the  Roman  Catholic  church. 


50  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

solute  in  theory,  leads  in  practical  reality  into 
scepticism  and  to  indifference  to  all  doctrinal  ex- 
position of  the  faith.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
take  our  stand  not  the  less  vigorously  against 
the  pretended  inutility  of  dogmatic  formulas  ; 
we  reject  as  illusory  and  fatal  the  principles  and 
methods  of  those  who  would  retain  the  spirit  of 
religion  without  giving  it  a  body  in  a  doctrinal 
organism. 

In  attempting  to  determine  the  role  of  dogma 
in  the  Protestant  church,  we  shall  not  waste  dis- 
cussion on  words,  on  the  legitimacy  or  inoppor- 
tuneness  of  the  term  "  dogma,"  or  on  the  dis- 
tinction which  should  be  made  between  dogma 
and  doctrine.  What  are  of  importance  here  are 
the  ideas  and  facts  which  it  is  necessary  to  estab- 
lish and  defend. 

(a]  It  is  necessary  that  Protestant  dogma 
should  be  the  expression  of  the  Protestant  faith. 
Its  exclusive  mission  consists  in  serving  as  the 
faithful  organ,  as  the  scrupulous  and  complete 
interpreter,  of  the  religious  experience  and  con- 
sciousness, of  which  the  Gospel  is  at  the  same 
time  the  principle  and  the  object.  That  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  the  material  for  dogma 
is  furnished  by  religion  which  traces  the  limits 
for  it  and  marks  out  its  tasks.  The  sphere  in 
which  dogma  centers  is  the  religious  sphere.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  problems  of  pure 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  51 

metaphysics,  with  the  physical  and  natural^ 
sciences,  or  with  historical  and  philological 
Ji&rf.  The  nearer  dogma  comes  to  being  the  |  / 
clear  and  luminous  expression  of  pure  evan- 
gelical faith,  the  nearer  does  it  approach  to 
its  ideal.  In  the  measure  in  which,  instead  of 
revealing  and  translating  faith,  it  obscures  or 
mutilates  it,  it  is  unfaithful  to  its  task  and  be- 
lies its  true  nature.  In  their  formation  and  de- 
velopment the  dogmas  of  different  churches 
have  become  in  time  charged  with  elements 
foreign  to  faith  ;  in  the  primary  stages  of  develop- 
ment the  majority  of  these  elements  were  the 
necessary  vehicles  of  Christian  piety  and  con- 
victions. But  the  primitive  harmony  existing 
between  the  containing  vessel  and  its  contents, 
between  religious  faith  and  dogmatic  formula,  is 
broken,  and  the  official  dogma  conceals  today 
materials  which,  far  from  serving  as  faithful  ex- 
ponents of  the  Christian  consciousness,  have 
come  to  be  its  obstacles  and  fetters.  What,  in 
such  a  case,  will  be  the  role  of  Protestant  dogma  ? 
Allowing  the  antiquated  forms  to  fall  away,  it 
must  become  again  the  living  interpreter  of 
faith  and  recover  the  original  accord  which 
maintained  between  the  Christian  principle  and 
its  theological  vehicle. 

(fr)  It    is    necessary    that    Protestant    dogma 
should  be  the  scientific  expression  of  the  Protes- 


52  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

tant  faith.  Dogma  is  the  language  which  faith 
speaks,  but  dogmatic  language  assumes  another 
form  and  proceeds  otherwise  than  the  expression 
of  piety  in  preaching,  in  catechetical  instruction, 
in  prayer  and  chants.  Clearness,  precision,  the 
logical  bond  of  thoughts,  absence  of  all  obscurity 
and  all  equivocation  in  ideas  or  terms,  are  the 
fundamental  qualities  which  we  rightfully  de- 
mand of  every  dogmatic  formula  destined  to 
translate  the  Protestant  faith.  These  qualities 
are  not  a  purely  scientific  or  literary  order ;  they 
have  their  origin  in  ethics ;  they  are  a  particular 
form  of  probity  and  integrity.  Nothing  is  more 
fatal  than  a  dogmatic  formula  which  conceals 
difficulties,  instead  of  seeking  to  solve  them,  or 
which  hides  the  truth  while  it  endeavors  to  ex- 
press it.  Without  exaggerating  the  importance 
of  theological  work,  it  is  possible  to  maintain  that 
the  invention  of  a  timely  formula,  of  a  term  at 
once  plastic  and  comprehensive,  is  a  precious 
service  which  science  can  render  to  piety  and  to 
the  church.  There  are  such  expressions,  serving 
as  summaries,  in  which,  under  tangible  and  work- 
able form,  faith  has  deposited  the  substance  of 
moral  experiences  and  religious  revelations. 
Aptitude  for  discovering  these  strong  and  signifi- 
cant expressions,  virtuosity  in  conceiving  these 
abbreviatory  formulas  which  are  the  concentrated 
essence  of  a  mass  of  observations  or  analyses,  is 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  5  3 

one  of  the  distinctive  marks  of  the  true  theolo- 
gian. In  our  century  no  one  has  invented  so 
many  such  expressions  as  Schleiermacher ;  he 
put  into  scientific  circulation  a  great  number  of 
singularly  rich  and  vigorous  terms,  luminous  and 
striking  definitions,  algebraic  notations  represent- 
ing the  important  phenomena  or  groups  of  phe- 
nomena from  which  the  author  was  able  to  dis- 
engage the  persistent  character  and  the  general 
law.  The  more  the  dogmatician  approaches 
clearness  and  sharpness  of  definition  in  these  in- 
finitely delicate  operations,  the  more  real  and 
durable  is  the  scientific  value  of  his  formulas. 

If  one  seriously  accepts  the  scientific  charac- 
ter of  dogma,  he  will  not  be  tempted  to  speak  of 
biblical  dogmas  or  revealed  dogmas.  Is  revela- 
tion a  scientific  function?  Ought  it  to  be  substi- 
tuted for  the  work  of  reflection  or  the  operations 
of  the  intellect?  Does  it  consist  of  a  communi- 
cation of  abstract  notions  or  theological  formu- 
las? Do  our  biblical  documents  pretend  to  be 
scientific  manuals?  Are  they  distinguished  by 
their  systematic  rigor  and  perfection?  To  all 
these  questions  one  can  give  only  a  negative 
answer.  Then  let  us  cease  to  degrade  the  nature 
of  revelation  or  the  Scriptures  by  seeking  there 
what  they  will  not  give  to  us,  that  is,  a  scientific 
formula  for  the  truths  which  they  proclaim.  Let 
us  discard  also  those  forms  of  expression  which 


54  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

can  only  obscure  a  question  in  itself  perfectly 
clear.  Let  us  not  adfnit  the  fiction  of  "  implicit 
dogmas,  not  theologically  formulated  ;"  let  us 
reserve  and  limit  the  term  to  the  scientific,  hence 
human,  expression  of  religious  faith,  the  fruit  of 
divine  revelation  ;  let  us  know  how  to  distinguish 
between  redemptive  facts,  the  creative  work  of 
God,  and  theological  formulas,  the  product  of 
human  reflection  ;  the  former  are  the  generative 
principles  and  objects  of  faith,  the  latter  only 
should  be  applied  to  dogmas. 

(c]  It  is  necessary  that  Protestant  dogma 
should  be  a  scientific  affirmation  of  the  faith  of 
the  church,  not  the  individual  opinion  of  a 
teacher  or  the  particular  system  of  a  school. 
Though  Protestantism  has  broken  with  the  Catho- 
lic notion  of  the  church  and  authority,  still  it  has 
not  wished  to  put  subjective  arbitrariness  in  the 
place  of  an  exterior  code  promulgated  by  an  in- 
fallible power.1  The  Protestant  church,  to  be 
sure,  recognizes  an  authority  to  which  it  submits 
itself  and  upon  which  it  bases  its  testimony.  The 
debate  between  Rome  and  Wittenberg  or  Geneva 
extends  only  to  the  nature  and  foundation  of  re- 
ligious authority.  That  authority,  of  an  entirely 
spiritual  character,  is  the  Gospel,  the  revela- 

xBovoN  :  "Dogma  is  not  the  product  of  subjective,  personal 
reflection ;  it  aspires  to  hold  that  which  is  held  in  common  by  the 
experiences  created  by  the  Gospel ;  this  gives  to  it  its  force  and 
its  general  character  of  authority. " 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  5  5 

tion  of    God  in  the  person  and   work  of  Jesus 
Christ.1 

(d}  It  is  necessary  that  dogma,  the  scientific 
expression  of  the  faith  of  the  church,  shall  respond 
to  the  needs  and  interests  of  the  present  epoch 
and  generation.  The  Protestant  dogma  which 
we  need  should  not  be  the  mere  inventory  of  a 
past  more  or  less  distant;  a  scientific  exposition 
of  dogmas  will  never  be  resigned  to  an  absorp- 
tion or  loss  of  itself  in  a  history  of  dogmas  or  in 
symbolism.2  Dogma,  to  correspond  to  its  aim, 
should  be  living,  that  is,  it  should  faithfully  rep- 
resent the  degree  of  spiritual  comprehension  of 
the  Gospel  to  which  the  church  of  our  day  is 
raised.  How  can  this  necessity  be  reconciled 
with  the  law  that  we  have  just  announced? 
Where  may  be  found  the  formula  that  will  gather 
up  in  its  entirety  the  Protestant  faith  of  our 
epoch  and  correspond  to  the  spiritual  temper  of 
our  Christian  consciousness?  There,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  is  the  vital  problem  of  Protestant  dog- 
matics. The  theologian  who  is  faithful  to  the 

1  See  Chaps.  IV  and  V  of  this  work. 

*  The  most  resolute  defenders  of  ancient  dogma  concede  this. 
The  necessity  of  taking  account  of  the  religious  needs  and  inter- 
ests of  the  present  generation  would  in  itself  be  sufficient  reason 
for  excluding  the  range  of  Protestant  dogmatics  from  the  histori- 
cal sciences,  as  Schleiermacher  wished  ;  but  in  other  respects  he 
did  not  abide  entirely  faithful  to  this  point  of  view.  See  Der 
christliche  Glaube,  §  19,  3  ;  §25. 


56  »  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

principle  of  the  Reformation  refuses  to  see  in  our 
own  times  the  norm  of  religious  truth,  and  yet 
he  does  not  wish  to  withdraw  himself  from  his 
environment  or  isolate  himself  from  his  contem- 
poraries; he  finds  the  measure  and  type  of  Chris- 
tian truth  in  the  Gospel,  but  he  wishes  that  this 
Gospel  might  speak  a  language  accessible  to  our 
generation.  He  does  not  despair  of  success  in 
such  an  enterprise,  for  he  knows  that  the  evan- 
gelical revelation  is  inexhaustibly  rich,  resistant 
enough  to  furnish  a  fixed  and  immovable  point 
in  the  midst  of  the  constant  evolution  of  dog- 
matic theories,  pliable  enough  to  adapt  itself  to 
the  most  varied  degrees  of  civilization  and  cul- 
ture.1 It  is  therefore  not  difficult  to  answer  the 
question  so  actively  debated  today:  "  Do  we  need 
a  new  dogma?  "  Those  who  identify  the  religious 
substance  of  the  Christian  verity  with  its  in- 
tellectual and  scientific  expression  will  resent 
that  question  as  folly  and  blasphemy;  those  who 
see  in  dogma  only  the  scientific  formula  of  faith 
will  judge  that  the  problem  thus  stated  outlines 

1  We  will  review  this  subject  in  the  treatment  of  authority  in 
religious  matters  and  of  the  norm  of  Protestant  dogmatics.  The 
fixed  point  of  dogmatics  has  been  emphasized  with  great  vigor  in 
the  inaugural  discourse  of  Haering,  May  2,  1895;  ne  has  shown 
that  the  Christian  faith  must  not  sacrifice  to  the  relativism  of 
contemporary  science  its  claim  to  the  possession  of  absolute 
religious  verity  in  the  revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  (see 
Die  Lebensfrage  der  systematischen  Theologie,  die  Lebemfrage  des 
christlichen  Glaubens,  Tubingen,  1895). 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  57 

precisely  the  task  which  devolves  upon  Protes- 
tant dogmatics.1  Today  every  dogmatician  who 
is  ambitious  to  serve  his  church  and  assist  in 
translating  into  living  and  fruitful  doctrines  the 
eternal  realities  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  sets  him- 
self to  this  task. 

It  is  therefore  our  task  to  set  forth  the  con- 
clusions of  our  researches  upon  dogma  and  apply 
these  to  Protestant  dogmatics. 

1  Such  is  the  position  of  Kaftan.  It  seems  to  me  that  cer- 
tain of  his  adversaries  are  nearer  to  his  position  than  they  think. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   ACTUAL    TASK    OF    PROTESTANT    DOGMATICS. 

I.  The  necessary  correlation  between  the  notion  of  dogma  and 
the  idea  of  a  dogmatic  discipline. — The  task  of  dogmatics  in  the 
Roman  church. — The  task  of  dogmatics  according  to  the  scho- 
lastic teachers  of  Protestant  orthodoxy. — The  task  of  dogmatics 
according  to  the  religious  principle  of  the  Reformation  consists  in 
the  systematic  exposition  of  faith,  of  which  the  Gospel  is  both 
source  and  object. 

II.  Protestant  dogmatics  and  the  Christain  faith. — Their  rela- 
tion to  each  other. — The  solution  implied  in  the  theology  of  the 
Reformers  and  resumed  by  Schleiermacher;  the  necessity  of  ful- 
filling that  program. — The  importance  and  dignity  which  dog- 
matics has  acquired  in  the  Protestant  church. 

III.  The  scientific  independence  and  practical  aim  of  Protestant 
dogmatics.  The  apparent  antinomy  which  this  problem  involves. 
— Dogmatics  is  legitimate  as  a  science,  not  in  transforming  the 
practical  function  of  religious  apprehension  into  objective  and 
theoretical  knowledge,  but  in  conforming  rigorously  to  the 
immanent  laws  of  its  own  object,  which  is  the  Christain  faith. — 
Dogmatics  contributes  to  the  edification  of  the  church,  not  by 
submitting  itself  as  a  credo  imposed  by  an  external  and  legal 
authority,  but  by  expressing  scientifically  the  religious  content  of 
the  Christian  consciousness,  the  child  of  the  Gospel.  The  close 
and  necessary  correlation  between  the  scientific  role  and  the 
ecclesiastical  task  of  Protestant  dogmatics. 

I. 

LIKE  dogma,  like  dogmatics.  There  obtains 
between  the  notion  of  dogma  and  the  role  of 
dogmatics  a  necessary  and  direct  relation. 

The  method  practiced  and  consecrated  by 
58 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  59 

Catholic  theology  corresponds  to  the  traditional 
idea  of  dogma.  If  dogma  is  the  statutory 
decision  of  an  infallible  authority,  if  the  theo- 
logian receives  from  the  hands  of  the  church 
revealed  doctrines  to  which  his  intelligence  can 
only  submit  itself,  then  "the  task  of  dogmatics 
is  at  bottom  very  simple.  Its  whole  aim  and 
effort  will  be  to  arrange  these  dogmas  in  a 
logical  order  so  as  to  make  a  system,  and,  so  far 
as  is  possible,  to  prove  them  by  the  aid  of 
reason  and  the  syllogism."1  Although  the  great 
scholastic  teachers  did  not  all  hold  an  iden- 
tical opinion  as  to  the  relation  between  reason 
and  the  ecclesiastical  dogma,  still  their  method 
did  not  essentially  differ.  The  work  of  the 
(Catholic)  dogmatician  is  almost  exclusively  a 
formal  one,  in  which  there  sometimes  appears  the 
encyclopedic  spirit  of  learning  which  compiles 
authorities ;  sometimes  the  logical  virtuosity  of 
the  dialectician  which  accumulates  divisions, 
definitions,  difficulties,  and  attempts  at  solution ; 
sometimes  the  synthetic  talent  of  the  organizer 
which  endeavors  to  construct  a  system  more 
artificial  than  solid. 

From  the  great  Catholic  teachers  of  the 
mediaeval  period  to  the  Protestant  dogmaticians 
of  the  orthodox  period  the  transition  is  easy, 
and  one  perceives  with  difficulty  any  change  in 

1  SABATIER,  De  la  vie  intime  des  dogmes,  p.  23. 


60  AJV  INTRODUCTION  TO 

epoch  and  church.  The  reason  is  that  those 
who  represented  the  orthodoxy  succeeding  the 
creative  period  of  the  Reformation  did  not  break 
with  the  principle  of  an  infallible  exterior  rule. 
Unfaithful  to  the  primitive  inspiration  of  Protes- 
tantism, they  returned  to  the  idea  of  legal  and 
statutory  authority,  and  they  made  this  the  basis 
of  their  conception  of  dogma  ;  but  for  the  authori- 
ty of  popes  and  councils  they  substituted  that  of 
the  Holy  Scripture  and  symbolic  books.  Instead 
of  drawing  dogmas  ready  made  and  perfect 
out  of  the  tradition  of  the  church,  they  drew 
them  from  the  Bible,  expounded  in  the  light  of 
the  confessions  of  faith.  But  in  either  case  the 
dogmatic  work  is  the  same.  The  task  is  to 
group  systematically  the  doctrines  imposed  by 
scriptural  or  ecclesiastical  authority,  to  find  divi- 
sions and  subdivisions,  to  formulate  definitions, 
to  accumulate  dicta  probantia  in  order  to  bolster 
up  traditional  dogmas,  and  to  turn  against  papist 
or  other  adversaries  the  arms  of  an  implacable 
polemic.  The  points  of  resemblance  between 
the  systems  of  our  ancient  dogmaticians  and  the 
summa  of  the  great  scholastics  of  the  Middle 
Ages  are  as  numerous  as  they  are  characteristic : 
abstract  form  of  development,  abuse  of  reason, 
triumph  of  the  syllogism,  sagacity  and  subtilty, 
erudition  and  narrowness,  minute  expositions, 
harshness  in  controversy,  servile  submission  to 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  6 1 

the  letter  of  the  biblical  canon  or  ecclesiastical 
creeds.  Thus  the  task  of  the  Protestant  dog- 
matician  differed  from  that  of  the  Catholic  sa- 
vant only  in  the  material  upon  which  he  exercised 
his  talent  and  his  purely  formal  method. 

It  is  clear  that  a  return  to  the  vital  principle 
of  the  Reformation  and  the  corresponding  trans- 
formation of  the  idea  of  dogma  in  the  evangelical 
church  involves  a  parallel  modification  of  the 
task  intrusted  to  the  dogmatician.  Dogmatics  is 
no  longer  for  us  a  more  or  less  skilfully  prepared 
inventory  of  the  loci  classici  of  Holy  Scripture  or 
of  the  doctrinal  decisions  of  our  creeds.  It  is 
the  scientific  exposition  of  the  Protestant  faith. 
From  the  inner  and  personal  character  of  that 
faith  flows  a  conception  of  dogmatics  very  differ- 
ent from  that  of  traditional  orthodoxy,  but  in 
harmony  with  the  generative  and  inspiring  spirit 
of  Protestant  piety. 

II. 

If  Protestant  dogmatics  is  the  systematic 
exposition  of  the  Protestant  faith,  it  follows  that 
it  has  its  roots  and  raison  d'etre  only  in  faith ; f 
it  must  translate  with  fidelity  the  affirmations  and 
follow  rigorously  the  guidance  of  faith ;  it  must 
accept  the  inspiration  and  safeguard  the  postu- 

1  Astie,  commenting  on  Harnack,  says :  "  A  new  dogmatic 
development  can  come  only  after  a  profound  and  intense  religious 
movement." 


62  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

lates  of  faith.  Dogmatics  creates  nothing ;  it 
merely  formulates  the  problems  whose  elements 
are  given  to  it  by  the  religious  experience  of  the 
Christian  in  the  presence  of  the  living  realities  of 
the  Gospel.  Dogmatics  is  an  experimental  and 
positive  science,  but  it  receives  its  material  from 
faith ;  rather,  its  material  is  faith  itself  with  the 
divine  content  of  faith,  that  is,  the  Gospel.  In 
determining  thus  the  object  and  limits  of  Protes- 
tant dogmatics,  we  are  only  following  and  apply- 
ing the  program  marked  out  by  our  Reformers 
and  gloriously  resumed  by  Schleiermacher. 

Without  doubt  Luther  and  his  great  co-laborers 
did  not  formulate  a  theory  of  religious  knowledge, 
nor  did  they  anywhere  sketch  a  dogmatic  pro- 
gram ;  but  they  did  better.  In  renewing  the  notion 
of  faith,  in  reviving  the  inner  and  personal  char- 
acter of  the  religion  of  the  Gospel,  they  traced 
for  Protestant  theology  a  way  whither  it  must 
proceed  without  wavering,  under  the  penalty  of 
decaying  and  becoming  a  poor  caricature  of 
Catholicism.  Their  reaction  against  the  tyranny 
of  Scholasticism,  the  effort  they  put  forth  to  free 
evangelical  faith  from  the  Roman  tradition  and 
from  the  authority  of  mediaeval  Aristotelianism, 
the  sovereign  importance  which  they  accorded  to 
the  Word  of  God,  the  principle  and  object  of 
faith,  have preparedthe  emancipation  of  Protestant 
dogmatics.  For  the  energy  with  which  Schleier- 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  6  3 

macher  has  claimed  for  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness "an independent  province,"  andhas  conferred 
upon  piety  the  religious  primacy  in  opposition  to 
formal  dogmatics,  for  the  vigor  of  his  protest 
against  the  enslaving  of  faith  by  the  yoke  of 
powers  foreign  or  hostile  to  religion,  he  deserves 
to  be  called  the  continuer  of  the  theological  work 
of  the  Reformation.  Unhappily  the  appellation 
does  not  correspond,  in  Schleiermacher,  to  the 
perspicuity  and  power  of  his  declaration  of  the 
rights  of  Protestant  dogmatics.  The  classical 
work  of  the  great  theologian  is  not,  to  tell  the 
truth,  a  systematic  exposition  of  the  Protestant 
faith  ;  it  is  composed  of  reflections  upon  the  soul 
of  the  Christian,  upon  the  different  modifications 
of  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  subject.  The 
bond  which,  in  theory,  Schleiermacher  established 
between  faith  and  dogmatics  was  thus  broken ; 
the  latter  was  no  longer  the  direct  expression  of 
the  former.  Between  faith  and  the  formula  of 
faith  there  were  interposed  factors  which  were 
not  drawn  from  the  inner  life  of  religion,  but 
which  the  author  borrowed  from  his  philosophical 
determinism.1  One  should  try  seriously  to  ap- 
prehend Schleiermacher's  undertaking  and  put 
into  practice  the  postulates  which  he  established 
with  irrefutable  eloquence. 

•BONIFAS,  "La   principe  th^ologique   de    ijchleiermacher," 
Revue  thtologique  de  Montauban,  1870,  p.  264. 


64  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

It  is  thus  in  the  fact  of  Christian  faith  born  of 
the  Gospel  that  we  shall  find  the  living  unity  of 
Protestant  dogmatics,  the  generative  and  organ- 
izing principle  of  the  system.  Without  dwelling 
here  upon  considerations  which  we  shall  take  up 
elsewhere,  it  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  con- 
tinually that  dogmatics  cannot  be  an  aggregation 
of  dogmas  originally  isolated  and  afterward 
grouped  together  by  the  dogmatician.  Far  from 
that ;  as  the  Christian  faith  is  unitary  in  prin- 
ciple, in  spite  of  the  infinite  variety  of  its  aspects 
and  manifestations,  so  dogmatics  must  form  a 
harmonious  organism,  a  complete  and  living 
whole.  The  dogmatician  who  does  not  aspire 
to  a  view  of  the  field  as  a  whole,  to  an  organic 
conception  of  the  Christian  faith,  has  not  rightly 
apprehended  his  task  and  is  below  the  level  which 
the  church  expects  him  to  attain.  The  unity  of 
which  we  speak  is  far  different  from  that  which 
ruled  in  the  laborious  and  artificial  constructions 
of  our  early  theologians ;  it  is  the  flowering 
forth  of  a  vital  principle  antecedent  to  all  work 
of  systematization ;  it  is  "  faith  giving  birth  to 
the  science  of  faith." 

Between  these  two — between  personal  and 
living  faith  and  dogmatic  science — the  relation 
is  direct  and  constant.  Hence  the  importance 
and  dignity  which  dogmatics  acquires  in  the  Prot- 
estant church.  A  glance  at  Catholicism  in  this 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  6  5 

regard  is  very  instructive.  I  have  tried  to  show 
above1  that,  notwithstanding  the  authoritative 
and  obligatory  character  of  its  revealed  and  di- 
vine dogmas,  the  Roman  church  favors,  in  prac- 
tice, indifference  and  ignorance  in  dogmatic 
matters.  Hence  the  work  of  the  dogmatician 
lies  outside  of  the  great  course  of  the  life  of  the 
church  ;  he  necessarily  has  no  hold  upon  the 
spirits  of  men,  because  dogma,  like  faith,  has  no 
essential  relation  to  the  inner  life,  to  the  religious 
development,  to  the  piety  of  believers.  Let  the 
theologian  amass  and  arrange  the  parts  of  his 
system  ;  the  laity  does  not  care.  It  submits  in  toto 
to  the  decrees  of  sovereign  authority ;  that  suf- 
fices and  ought  to  suffice  for  it.  Not  so  with 
Protestants.  If  it  is  true  that  dogmatics  is  only 
the  translation  of  the  experiences  of  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  into  scientific  language,  if  it 
ought  to  spring  from  the  depths  of  our  religious 
life,  then  every  obstacle  between  piety  and  the- 
ology is  condemnable.  At  the  point  where  it 
originates  it  betrays  a  hidden  error.  Either  dog- 
matics, instead  of  drawing  from  the  source  of 
living  faith,  goes  astray  in  empty  and  sterile  ab- 
stractions, or  piety,  ceasing  to  abide  in  touch 
with  the  thought  of  its  times,  degenerates  into 
narrow  and  sickly  pietism.  Thus  there  must  be 
between  the  new  life,  illumined  by  the  Gospel, 
*  See  Chap.  II,  §  I. 


66  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

and  dogmatic  science,  elaborating  the  formulas 
of  faith,  a  union,  even  a  real  and  constant  col- 
laboration. 

III. 

In  fulfilling  this  condition,  dogmatics  will 
reach  the  solution  of  a  problem  which,  at  first  view, 
presents  serious  difficulties  and  might  even  appear 
insoluble.  On  one  hand,  it  means  to  be  a  true 
science,  an  independent  science ;  on  the  other 
hand,  it  would  work  efficiently  in  the  service  of 
the  church. 

In  affirming  that  Protestant  dogmatics  is  a 
science,  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  it  must 
possess  merely  the  formal  attributes  of  scientific 
exposition.  Perspicuity  of  development,  preci- 
sion in  definitions,  simplicity  and  rigor  in  arrange- 
ment, do  not  suffice  to  constitute  a  science  worthy 
of  the  name ;  certainly  none  of  these  qualities 
could  assure  the  freedom  of  science. 

Where,  then,  shall  we  find  the  guaranty  of  in- 
dependence which  alone  attests  the  dignity  of 
dogmatic  science? 

One  sometimes  seeks  to  secure  for  himself 
this  necessary  liberty  by  the  help  of  illusory  and 
dangerous  means.  It  is  imagined  that,  by  effa- 
cing the  line  of  demarkation  which  distinguishes 
religious  knowledge  from  scientific  knowledge, 
one  might  succeed  in  raising  dogmatics  to  the 
height  of  a  true  science.  "  Let  religious  truth  do 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  6  ^ 

away  with  its  personal  and  subjective  character ; 
let  it  transform  itself  into  objective  and  imper- 
sonal idea ;  let  it  resign  itself  to  being  a  purely 
practical  manifestation  of  the  spiritual  life ;  let  it 
have  the  ambition  and  the  courage  to  fix  itself  in 
theoretical  function ;  let  it  translate  itself  into 
logical  and  metaphysical  theses  of  universal  and 
indisputable  import.  Only  under  this  condition 
can  Protestant  dogmatics  pretend  to  be  a  science." 
Such  is  the  program  of  orthodoxy  of  which  con- 
temporary speculative  theology  is,  on  this  point, 
the  faithful  and  convinced  ally.1 

It  is  nevertheless  true  that  those  who  give 
such  counsels  to  Protestant  dogmatics  are  its 
worst  enemies  ;  without  willing  to  do  so,  they 
undermine  its  foundation  and  work  towards  its 
destruction. 

In  effect,  the  proper  subject-matter  of  dog- 
matics does  not  appertain  to  the  sphere  of  theo- 
retical and  objective  knowledge.  That  subject- 
matter  is  Christian  faith,  an  eminently  personal 
act,  a  determination  of  the  will  and  the  conscience, 

1  To  characterize  the  contemporary  German  theological 
speculation,  it  suffices  to  cite  the  names  of  the  two  theologians 
most  noted  in  the  speculative  school,  Biedennann  and  Pfleiderer. 
Nothing  is  more  instructive,  in  this  regard,  than  a  comparison  of 
the  three  editions  of  the  Dogmatics  of  LIPSIUS  (1876,  1879,  1894). 
One  can  follow  here  the  strong  and  sincere  effort  of  the  author, 
who  separated  himself  with  increasing  vigor  and  clearness  from 
the  tyranny  of  speculative  thought,  according  to  which  dogmatics 
is  a  religious  metaphysic. 


68  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

an  inner  affirmation  provoked  by  a  divine  fact,  by 
a  superior  revelation,  by  the  gift  of  the  love  of 
God  demanding  the  gift  of  the  heart  of  man. 
[This  inner  drama  of  the  spirit  will  never  be  able 
|  to  resolve  itself  into  a  dialectic  process  or  into  a 
1  problem  accessible  to  theoretical  reason ;  it  is  a 
work  of  divine  grace  constraining  and  freeing  the 
human  will ;  it  is  an  experience  which  sinks  into 
the  depths  of  the  moral  life  and  takes  place  only 
by  the  help  of  all  the  energies  of  the  soul.  To  fail 
to  recognize  this  subjective  and  practical  character 
of  Christian  piety,  to  eliminate  faith  from  the 
active  and  spontaneous  life,  to  lift  it  into  I  know 
not  what  objective  and  theoretical  region,  in 
order  to  assure  the  independence  of  the  science 
of  faith — that  is  to  undertake  a  fatal  and  deceptive 
task  ;  it  is  to  dissolve  the  Christian  verity  into  a 
poor  residue  of  speculative  abstractions  ;  it  is  to 
kill  the  religion  in  Christianity. 

Some  other  way  must  be  attempted,  and,  after 
what  we  have  thus  far  established,  the  procedure 
should  not  be  doubtful.  How  can  dogmatics 
establish  its  right  as  a  science?  By  conforming 
to  the  laws  which  are  derived  from  the  very 
nature  of  its  object ;  by  conforming  rigorously  to 
the  conditions  and  to  the  character  of  its  own 
material ;  by  confining  itself  within  the  limits 
traced  for  it  by  the  data  upon  which  dogmatics 
rests.  Now,  that  material,  that  object,  is  the 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  69 

Christian  faith ;  these  data  the  Gospel  furnishes 
to  faith.  If  dogmatics  is  the  submissive  inter- 
preter of  the  Christian  faith,  it  will  share  in  the 
independence  which  characterizes  its  principle, 
because  the  Christian  faith  is  a  spiritual  reality 
which,  born  of  the  Gospel,  does  not  depend  upon 
the  forum  of  natural  reason,  nor  does  it  come 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  empirical  and 
phenomenal  domain.  Just  as  aesthetics  is  consti- 
tuted a  science  by  the  sole  fact  that  it  deduces 
the  immanent  laws  of  the  beautiful  and  strives  to 
express  these  in  clear  and  precise  words,  so  dog- 
matics responds  to  its  scientific  mission  by  faith- 
fully reproducing  and  connecting  with  rigor  the 
immediate  affirmations  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness. It  does  not  need,  therefore,  to  ask  for 
scientific  investiture  from  powers  foreign  to  faith  ; 
faith  it  is,  which,  giving  to  dogmatics  its  reason 
for  existence,  confers  upon  it  its  titles  of  nobility. 
To  deny  the  scientific  character  of  Protestant 
dogmatics  would  be  to  deny  the  fact  of  Christian 
piety  and  the  very  existence  of  evangelical 
faith.1 

But  is  not  this  scientific  independence  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics  a  compromise  with  the  duty 
incumbent  on  theology  of  contributing  to  the 

•Thus  we  cannot  subscribe  to  the  judgment  of  H.  Bois: 
"  Theology  (systematic,  dogmatic)  is  not  a  science." — Le  dogme 
free,  p.  267. 


70  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

edification  of  the  church?  How  is  the  autonomy 
of  theological  science  to  be  reconciled  with  its 
mission  of  working  for  the  greatest  good  of  a 
confession  or  a  religious  society?  Does  not  the 
service  exacted  of  this  science  constitute  a  slavery 
unworthy  of  it? 

By  no  means.  If  dogmatics  does  the  work  of 
a  science  in  interpreting  faithfully  and  clearly  the 
Christian  consciousness  of  the  church,  is  it  not 
evident  that,  in  just  that  measure,  it  accomplishes  a 
task  directly  useful  to  the  church?  To  expound 
with  scrupulous  care  the  Christian  experiences 
which  characterize  Protestantism,  to  translate  these 
experiences  into  clear  and  precise  language,  to 
point  out  their  creative  principle,  their  permanent 
inspiration,  their  organic  and  living  bond,  such  is 
the  scientific  task  of  Protestant  dogmatics,  such 
is  likewise  the  theological  and  ecclesiastical  mis- 
sion of  that  discipline.  There  is  no  dualism,  no 
conflict,  between  these  two  functions.  Dogmatics 
finds  its  center  of  gravity  and  base  of  operation 
in  the  spiritual  realities  which  are  the  very  life  of 
the  Christian  community;  it  is  the  intellectual 
organ  and  scientific  interpreter  of  this  life;  it 
draws  unceasingly  from  this  inexhaustible  source 
the  material  of  its  work;  it  returns  to  believers 
under  reflective  and  reasoned  form  the  sentiments 
and  thoughts  which  it  receives  in  a  primitive  and 
confused  state,  obscure  and  fragmentary;  it  ex- 


PRO  TESTA  NT  DOGMA  TICS  7 1 

presses  and  develops  the  content  of  the  religious 
consciousness  of  the  church;  it  translates  the 
Christian  life  into  theological  thought;  from  the 
fervor  of  faith  it  causes  to  spring  forth  the  light 
of  knowledge. 

This  close  relationship  and  spiritual  collabora- 
tion do  not  profit  the  church  alone;  they  react 
also  upon  dogmatic  science,  and  bring  to  it  a 
valuable  and  constant  assistance;  there  is  an  ex- 
change and  reciprocity  of  services  and  offices. 
The  ever-present  thought  of  its  mission  to  the 
Christian  community  keeps  dogmatics  from  iso- 
lating itself  from  the  practical  interests  of  the 
religious  consciousness;  it  does  not  permit  it  to 
intrench  itself  in  abstract  spheres  of  pure  specu- 
lation; it  reminds  dogmatics  ever  that  it  is  the 
servant  of  faith,  and  that  any  theological  formula 
which  is  not  the  expression  of  that  faith  has  no 
right  to  existence  in  the  doctrinal  system  of 
Protestantism. 

The  solidarity  which  maintains  between  dog- 
matic science  and  the  church  should  not,  how- 
ever, be  understood  in  the  superficial  sense  which 
Catholicism  often  attaches  to  it,  and  which  some- 
times appears  in  our  evangelical  communities. 
No  official  church  is  qualified  to  impose  upon 
Protestant  theology  a  dogmatic  credo  and  pre- 
scribe for  it  "that  which  it  is  necessary  to  be- 
lieve;" on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  the  mission 


72  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  dogmatics  to  furnish  to  the  preacher  or  teacher 
the  direct  subject-matter  for  sermon  or  teach- 
ing. It  is  not  in  this  exterior  and  mechanical 
fashion  that  the  relationship  between  the  dog- 
matic activity  of  the  theologian  and  the  practical 
ministry  of  the  pastor  should  be  comprehended. 
Such  a  relationship  would  degrade  the  dignity  of 
the  science  and  pervert  the  vocation  of  the  church; 
it  would  change  dogmatics  into  a  technical  and 
empirical  training,  deprived  of  all  high  inspiration 
and  ideal  value;  it  would  make  of  the  church  a 
judicial  corporation  or  administrative  machine, 
imposing  upon  thought  the  yoke  of  a  vexing  and 
degrading  code;  it  would  deny  the  essential 
character  of  Protestantism  and  betray  the  reli- 
gious principle  of  the  Gospel. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  alliance  between 
these  two  friendly  powers  should  rest,  not  on  an 
external  compromise,  but  upon  the  immanent  law 
of  theology  and  of  the  church;  that  is,  upon  inner 
and  personal  faith,  which  is  at  once  the  soul  of 
the  Christian  community  and  the  object  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics. 

We  have  thus  the  materials  for  our  point  of 
departure,  for  the  invariable  theme  of  our  re- 
searches and  our  exposition:  faith  giving  birth  to 
the  science  of  faith.  The  inner  necessity  which 
brings  us  constantly  into  the  presence  of  this 
capital  subject  imposes  on  us  all  the  more  im- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  73 

periously  the  duty  of  discussing  the  problem 
which  has  many  times  solicited  our  consideration: 
What  are  the  source  and  the  norm  of  Protestant 
dogmatics? 

We  shall  try  to  answer  this  question. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  SOURCE  OF  PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS. 
I.  Evangelical  faith  the  source  of  Protestant  dogmatics* — 
Necessity  of  interpreting  this  formula. —  The  experimental  and 
personal  character  of  faith  and  of  Protestant  theology. — The 
Reformers. —  Pietism. —  Schleiermacher :  fruitfulness  of  the  theo- 
logical principle  which  he  drew  from  the  premises  of  the  Refor- 
mation ;  breaks  in  this  principle. 

II.  Is  the  religious  experience  of  the  Christian  the  source  of 
Protestant  dogmatics  ?  —  The  narrowness  and  weakness  of  that 
theological  position. —  Dangers  and  illusions  to  which  theologians 
of  subjective  experience  expose  themselves. —  The  part  which 
they  assign  to  the  Holy  Scripture  and  to  ecclesiastical  tradition  : 
accomodations  and  compromises. —  Inadequacy  of  this  point  of 
view. 

III.  Attempt  at  a  solution  of  the  problem. — The  question  of  the 
source  of  dogmatics  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  source  of  faith. — 
The  Gospel  the  source  of  Protestant  faith  ;  the  meaning  and  ex- 
tent of  this  formula.  —  Criticism  of  the  point  of  view  of 
Schleiermacher. — The  Gospel  and  the  Christian  consciousness. — 
Agreement  of  this  solution  with  the  religious  principle  of  the 
Reformation. —  The  necessity  of  completing  the  study  of  the 
source  of  dogmatics  by  an  examination  of  the  norm  of  dogmatics. 

I. 

AFTER  the  preceding  researches,  the  solu- 
tion of  the  much  discussed  problem  of  the  source 
of  Protestant  dogmatics  will  no  longer  seem  im- 
possible. 

If  dogmatics  is  the  science  of  faith,  it  must 
be  concluded  that  the  object  of  that  science  is 
74 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  7  5 

also  its  source  :  the  source  of  dogmatics  is 
faith. 

Since  that  proposition  is  capable  of  various 
interpretations,  it  is  important  to  determine  clear- 
ly its  meaning. 

To  declare  that  evangelical  faith  is  the  source 
of  Protestant  dogmatics  is  to  announce  a  judg- 
ment which  immediately  raises  a  new  problem  : 
Where  will  the  dogmatician  find  the  constitutive 
elements,  and,  if  I  dare  so  to  designate  it,  the 
original  material  or  living  substance  of  that  faith 
whose  scientific  expression  he  undertakes  to 
formulate  ? 

Is  it  in  the  personal  consciousness  of  the 
theologian  ?  Many  authors  have  so  judged,  and 
in  a  certain  sense  it  is  true  to  say  that  the  living 
faith  discloses  itself  precisely  in  the  believing 
subject,  in  the  individual  Christian.  If  the 
motto  of  the  dogmatician  should  be  the  cele- 
brated word  of  Anselm,  Credo  ut  intelligam,  is 
not  his  task,  then,  to  comprehend,  to  analyze,  to 
express  his  own  inner  experiences  as  a  Christian, 
to  translate  into  scientific  formulas  the  spiritual 
realities  which  determine  and  constitute  his  in- 
ner life,  to  transform  into  reflective  and  precise 
concepts  the  immediate  affirmations  of  his  own 
piety  ? 

That  conception  seems  the  more  plausible  be- 
cause it  can  appeal  to  a  series  of  declarations 


76  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

borrowed  from  our  Reformers.  What  is,  in  a 
word,  according  to  the  spiritual  fathers  of  our 
church,  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion  ?  It 
is  the  personal  experience  of  salvation,  the  im- 
movable certitude  of  the  grace  of  God  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  individual  assurance  of  pardon  and 
of  the  divine  life,  the  communion  of  the  justi- 
fied and  regenerated  soul  with  the  heavenly 
Father  who  has  given  himself  to  us  in  his  only 
Son. 

Must  we  quote  texts  and  recall  clear  and  de- 
cisive testimony  on  this  point  ?  Luther  does  not 
weary  of  repeating  that  it  is  faith  that  makes  one  a 
Christian,  and  that  theology  has  only  the  other 
part  of  teaching  what  faith  produces  by  help  of 
the  Word  of  God.  Where,  again,  does  Melanc- 
thon  find  the  peculiar  object  of  theological  elabo- 
ration, if  not  in  the  practical  and  experimental 
knowledge  of  the  benefits  of  Christ  ?  How  often 
do  Zwingli  and  Calvin  appeal  to  the  experience 
of  the  believer,  to  the  mens  Christiana  which  Cal- 
vin opposed  to  the  sensus  carnis  and  which  he 
made  the  attribute  of  belief  and  the  necessary 
organ  of  Christian  knowledge !  So  true  is  it 
that  the  emancipation  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness should  involve  a  radical  revolution  in  the 
domain  of  dogmatic  theology  ! 

This  impulse,  once  given,  was  continued  by 
Pietism.  In  spite  of  the  profound  differences  which 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  7  7 

separate  it  from  our  Reformers,  in  spite  of  the 
leaven  of  monastic  Catholicism  which  mingled 
with  its  moral  and  religious  life,  Pietism  has,  in  a 
word,  renewed  and  re-established  in  the  light  some 
of  the  great  spiritual  affirmations  of  Luther  and 
Calvin,  affirmations  which  were  the  fruitful  germs 
of  a  new  dogmatics.  In  the  famous  controversies 
which,  on  several  occasions,  were  raised  between 
the  Pietists  and  orthodoxy,  Spener  and  his 
friends  took  their  position  as  defenders  of  a 
point  of  view  which,  notwithstanding  all  manner 
of  imprudence,  misunderstandings,  and  confusion, 
corresponds  to  some  of  the  masterful  ideas  of 
our  Reformers.  "  It  is  necessary  to  be  a  ; 
Christian  in  order  to  be  a  theologian  ;  one  must  \ 
live  the  life  of  faith  to  be  capable  of  construct-  J 
ing  a  science  of  faith."  These  theses  of  the 
Pietists  are  in  absolute  contrast  to  the  theories  of 
their  orthodox  adversaries  who  see  in  theology  a 
severely  objective  science,  whose  mission  con- 
sists in  expounding  and  demonstrating  the 
articles  of  faith  of  the  traditional  creed. 

Evangelical  individualism,  at  the  same  time 
vigorous  and  inconsistent  in  our  Reformers,  wa- 
vering or  excessive  in  the  Pietists  and  their  more 
radical  successors,  concealed  within  itself  a  new 
theology  which  neither  Luther  nor  Spener  had 
undertaken  to  set  forth  or  scientifically  formu- 
late. That  work  of  renovation  was  attempted  by 


78  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Schleiermacher.  He  drew  from  the  religious 
premises  of  the  Reformation  a  theological  prin- 
ciple, a  dogmatic  canon.  "One  is  a  member  of  * 
V  the  Christian  community  only  by  faith  in  Jesus 
\Christ,  the  Savior."  "To  enter  into  communion 
with  Christ  is  to  live  in  a  new  relationship  with 
God,  that  is,  it  is  to  be  justified,  and,  for  that 
very  reason,  it  is  to  change  the  manner  of  one's 
life,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  to  be  converted." x  This 
Inew  life  is  at  once  the  actual  foundation  and 
Uogical  prius  of  the  Christian  Science  ;  the  ex- 
perience of  communion  with  God  in  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  root  from  whence  springs  dogmatic 
theology. 

In  announcing  these  axioms  and  placing  them 
at  the  foundation  of  his  religious  and  dialectic 
masterpiece,  Schleiermacher  brought  into  full 
light  the  eminently  personal  character  of  Prot- 
estant faith.  On  this  premise  his  theological  prin- 
ciple flows  directly  from  the  original  and  authentic 
inspiration  of  the  Reformation,  and  it  abides 
constant  in  Protestant  dogmatics.  No  evangelical 
conviction  truly  worthy  of  the  name  could  be  the 
mere  repetition  of  a  testimony  foreign  to  our  own 
spiritual  life ;  it  is  an  affirmation  of  the  religious 
consciousness,  an  inner  decision  of  the  Christian 
subject,  the  fruit  of  a  spiritual  certitude,  an  "as- 
sent of  self  to  self,"  an  act  of  confidence  pro- 

1  SCHLEIERMACHER,  Derchrutliche  Glaube,  §§  14,  107. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  79 

yoked  and  incessantly  maintained  in  the  soul  by 
a  factor  imposing  itself  upon  us  with  an  evidence 
as  spiritual  as  it  is  imperious. 

This  principle,  of  marvelous  fruitfulness,  has 
been  the  powerful  ferment  which  broke  the 
molds  of  orthodox  and  critical  intellectualism 
and  also  caused  the  inert  leaven  of  an  antiquated 
supernaturalism  and  a  rationalism  without  depth 
or  religious  savor  to  become  active.  It  is  be- 
cause he  discovered  these  truths — attained  by 
the  Reformation,  but  too  often  unrecognized  and 
afterward  forgotten  altogether — that  Schleier- 
macher  has  led  the  theological  movement  of  our 
century  and  has  left  upon  the  field  of  Protest- 
ant thought  his  ineffaceable  stamp.  In  France, 
Vinet  agrees  on  this  point  with  the  renovator  of 
German  theology,  but  his  influence  was  felt  later 
and  in  a  less  extended  sphere  than  that  which 
bears  the  stamp  of  the  genius  of  Schleiermacher. 
Doubtless  the  latter  did  not  found  a  school,  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  but  his  influence 
nevertheless  dominates  all  the  leading  concep- 
tions of  our  epoch,  from  the  attempts  at  the 
restoration  of  Lutheran  confessionalism  to  the 
limits  of  critical  theology,  through  all  shades  on 
the  side  of  conciliation.  In  diverse  degrees, 
every  theologian  who  thinks  depends  upon  that 
great  pioneer  and  has  rendered  homage  to  the 
principle  according  to  which  he  renewed  the 


8o  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

science  of  faith ;  but  each  theologian  has  tried 
also  to  correct  the  application  of  that  principle 
and,  in  the  same  measure,  has  modified  the  sys- 
tem based  on  the  original  foundation. 

These  attempts  at  correction  are  legitimate, 
for,  however  incontestable  may  be  the  fundamental 
axiom  of  Schleiermacher,  it  is  certain  that  the 
corollaries  which  the  master  himself  and  the  great 
majority  of  his  immediate  or  more  remote  disci- 
ples have  drawn  from  it  are  exposed  to  the  most 
serious  and  best-founded  criticisms. 
II. 

"  I,  the  Christian,  am  for  myself,  the  theo- 
logian, the  object  of  my  science."  *  These  words 
of  one  of  the  most  illustrious  disciples  of  Schleier- 
macher express  the  thought  common  to  the  ma- 
jority of  the  dogmatic  attempts  undertaken  under 
the  impulse  of  the  principle  of  modern  theology. 
In  fact,  he  was  the  chief  and  spiritual  father  of 
the  theoreticians  of  personal  experience.  Doubt- 
less he  demanded  that  each  dogmatic  thesis 
should  make  good  its  Christian  origin  and  its 
Protestant  character  by  its  accord  with  the  New 
Testament  and  with  the  confessions  of  evangelical 
faith;2  so  also  he  relied  frequently  upon  the  re- 
ligious testimony  of  Christ ;  but  in  the  course  of 

'HOFMANN,  Schriftbeweis  (Nordlingen,  1852-55,  p.  10. 
*Der  christliche  Glaube,  §  27  :  cf.  Kurze  Darstellung  des  theo- 
logischcn  Studiums,  §  289. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  8 1 

his  exposition  he  made  the  phenomenon  of  his 
own  subjective  piety  the  source  for  Protestant 
dogmatics.  That  which  the  dogmatician  is  called 
upon  to  describe  and  analyze  is  the  state  of  the 
soul  of  the  Christian,  his  religious  experience,  the 
inner  sentiment  of  the  believing  subject,  the  modi- 
fications of  the  consciousness  of  sin  and  of  grace, 
the  constitutive  elements  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness. In  fixing  and  confining  within  these 
limits  the  source  of  dogmatics,  in  isolating  the 
individual  phenomenon  from  the  objective  factor 
which  determines  it  and  unceasingly  corrects  it, 
Schleiermacher  opened  the  door  to  an  individu- 
alism which  has  been  only  partially  faithful  to 
the  primitive  inspiration  of  the  Reformation,  and 
which  has  neglected  some  of  the  most  valuable 
elements  of  the  spiritual  heritage  of  our  fathers. 
To  refute  the  extreme  subjectivism  of  Schleier- 
macher and  his  followers,  one  might  call  attention 
to  the  analogy  which  maintains  between  his  dog- 
matics and  the  philosophy  contemporary  with  the 
great  Christian  thinker.  The  dogmatician  who 
would  pretend  to  draw  the  material  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  from  his  own  individual  conscious- 
ness would  fall  into  the  illusion  of  Fichte,  who 
dreamed  the  impossible  enterprise  of  constructing 
the  Non-ego  while  leaning  upon  the  sole  fact  of 
the  Ego.  But  let  us  leave  these  analogies,  often 
deceiving  and  always  incomplete,  and  let  us  con- 


82  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

sider  the  point  of  view  of  pure  experience  in  the 
light  of  the  postulates  of  the  Christian  faith  itself. 

The  theorists  of  personal  experience  attempt 
to  take  possession  of  ground  which  is  neither 
large  enough  nor  strong  enough  to  support  the 
weight  of  a  dogmatic  structure. 

In  the  first  place,  the  ground  which  they 
choose  is  too  narrow.  No  one  will  dare,  I  think, 
to  maintain  that  his  own  subjective  experience 
embraces  the  full  extent  and  exhausts  the  depths 
of  Christian  experiences  accessible  to  all  believers. 
Grant  to  an  individual  a  spiritual  life  elevated  to 
the  highest  degree  ;  give  to  him  the  most  delicate 
and  the  strongest  moral  consciousness  ;  accumu- 
late in  his  spirit  the  richest  and  most  varied  reli- 
gious and  moral  treasures ;  you  will  still  always 
have  the  feeling  that  you  have  come  infinitely 
short  of  the  Christian  ideal.  What  sort  of  a  dog- 
matician  is  he  who  could  have  the  courage  to 
claim  for  himself  a  privilege  which  he  does  not 
dare  to  attribute  to  'any  one  of  the  founders  and 
fathers  of  the  church  ?  There  is  only  one  man  in 
history  who  has  claimed  for  himself  a  cloudless 
knowledge  of  God  and  an  unalterable  communion 
with  the  heavenly  Father  ;  the  Son  alone  has 
realized  and  manifested,  in  his  life  and  in  his 
death,  the  perfect  moral  and  religious  experience, 
whose  gleams  of  light  even  his  greatest  disciples 
only  partially  apprehended  and  reproduced.  We 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  83 

can  foresee,  then,  where  will  reside  the  indispen- 
sable corrective  of  the  point  of  view  of  those 
who  would  draw  the  substance  of  dogmatics  from 
the  source  of  their  own  personal  experience.1 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  theolo- 
gians whom  we  are  opposing  on  this  issue  realize 
keenly  the  difficulty  here  indicated,  and  are  try- 
ing to  clear  it  from  their  pathway.  They  realize 
perfectly  that  in  making  their  subjective  Chris- 
tianity the  matter  and  source  of  their  science  of 
dogma  they  are  bound  to  establish  the  univer- 
sally Christian  character  of  their  own  religious 
experiences.  In  a  word,  they  are  compelled  to 
demonstrate  that  the  phenomena  analyzed  are 
actually  common  to  all  true  Christians ;  then, 
and  then  only,  will  they  be  protected  from  the 
dangers  of  arbitrariness,  from  the  errors  and 
vagaries  of  imagination,  from  the  aberrations  of 
a  piety  abandoned*  to  itself  and  void  of  all  re- 
straint and  control.2 

1  See  Chap.  V  of  this  treatise. 

1  It  is  necessary  that  the  Christian  should  observe  in  him- 
self, first,  the  fact  for  which  he  proposes  to  furnish  the  theory ; 
that  is,  the  primary  and  indispensable  condition  of  his  study 
which  sets  out  from  himself  and  on  the  strength  of  a  personal 
color  of  things.  But  this  individual  character  is  at  the  same 
time  universal  if  the  Christian  life  which  the  dogmatist  describes 
develops  in  a  normal  manner,  and  it  approaches  this  in  the  meas- 
ure in  which,  in  communion  with  other  believers,  the  theologian 
always  compares  himself  better  with  the  objective  fact  of  the 
Gospel. —  BOVON,  Dogmatique  chrttienne,  Vol.  I,  pp.  102,  103. 


84  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

But  how  shall  we  fulfil  such  a  condition? 
Where  may  be  found  this  guaranty  of  Christian 
universality  which  the  dogmatican  must  obtain 
under  penalty  of  compromising  both  the  Chris- 
tian and  the  scientific  character  of  his  exposi- 
tion ?  Are  we  advised  to  limit  ourselves  to  the 
observation  of  others,  to  compare  our  own  ex- 
periences with  those  of  our  brothers,  to  eliminate 
the  dissimilar  elements  in  order  to  retain  only 
that  which,  in  every  instance,  bears  a  like  stamp 
and  presents  a  common  type  ?  A  dangerous  pre- 
scription, since,  in  following  it,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  get  out  of  ourselves  and  the  closed 
camp  of  our  individual  consciousness ;  that  is, 
we  should  have  to  condemn  in  principle  the  sub- 
jective method  we  had  just  lauded.  A  vain  and 
illusory  prescription  also,  since  the  object  upon 
which  our  examination  and  comparison  should 
bear  would  very  often  withdraw  from  our  investi- 
gation. Truly  pious  natures  do  not  spread  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  their  neighbors  the  treasures  of 
their  spiritual  experiences ;  it  is  indeed  difficult 
to  penetrate  into  the  sanctuary  of  their  life  hid- 
den with  Christ  in  God,  to  make  it  the  material 
of  a  direct  observation  and  precise  inquiry,  to 
comprehend  and  describe  that  which,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  remains  a  secret  between  God 
and  their  consciences.  Moreover,  even  if  it  were 
possible  to  tear  away  all  these  veils  and  sound 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  85 

all  these  mysteries,  such  a  study  of  the  souls  of 
others  would  presuppose  and  require  in  us  the 
faculty  of  taking  our  departure  from  a  point 
between  the  normal  religious  experiences,  on  one 
hand,  and  emotions  primarily  foreign  to  Chris- 
tianity or  warped  in  their  real  nature  on  the 
other.  Now,  who  would  dare  to  claim  that  he 
possessed  the  necessary  tact,  the  sure  discern- 
ment, the  infallible  criteria  for  effecting  this 
delicate  discrimination  ? 

This  brings  us  to  another  embarrassment  of 
the  subjective  method.  Our  personal  experience 
is  not  only  too  narrow  and  too  incomplete  to 
serve  as  the  source  for  dogmatic  science;  it  is 
also  subject  to  mistakes ;  it  is  too  weak,  too  in- 
termittent, too  much  tainted  with  error  and  sin, 
to  make  it  possible  for  us  to  draw  from  our  own 
consciousness  as  Christian  the  original  material 
for  our  work  as  theologian.  It  suffices,  to  con- 
vince oneself  of  this,  to  examine  these  questions 
more  closely  and  come  down  to  some  particular 
examples  and  concrete  applications.  Behold ! 
In  developing  the  Christian  idea  of  God,  the 
dogmatist  would  measure  the  reality  of  divine 
love  by  the  intensity  of  his  own  feeling  of  it !  In 
treating  justification,  he  would  make  his  own 
subjective  faith  its  center  of  gravity !  In  speak- 
ing of  the  new  life,  he  would  rest  the  foundations 
of  the  Christian  doctrine  on  the  phenomena 


86  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

which  he  might  discover  in  himself !  But  has  he 
not  known,  has  he  never  perceived,  that  that 
inner  certitude,  which  should  bear  the  weight 
of  a  doctrinal  construction,  sometimes  passes 
through  fearful  eclipses  ?  Has  not  his  inner 
life  known  dryness  and  emptiness,  struggles  and 
doubts,  grievous  and  weakening  fluctuations, 
bitter  humiliations  of  defeat  and  failure  ?  There 
are  also  experiences  whose  poignant  reality  the 
Christian  most  vividly  attests,  which  cause  him 
to  long  for  a  certitude  founded  elsewhere  than 
on  the  moving  sands  of  our  sentiments,  our 
thoughts,  and  our  efforts.  If  the  Christian,  con- 
demned by  his  own  heart,  appeals  from  it  to  God, 
who  is  far  greater  than  his  heart;  if  in  the 
trouble  of  his  spirit  he  has  recourse  to  the  im- 
movable faithfulness  of  One  in  whom  there  is 
no  shadow  of  turning;  if  he  is  happy  to  turn  his 
mind  away  from  his  own  ever-imperfect  works 
and  from  his  ever-insufficient  faith  and  fix  it 
upon  a  Savior  who  is  the  same  yesterday,  today, 
and  forever — how,  then,  can  the  theologian  dare 
to  try  to  climb  up  by  some  other  way  ?  In  order 
to  guarantee  the  solidity  of  his  system,  ought  he 
not  to  seek  for  himself  also  that  same  rock  of 
which  the  believer  has  need,  to  assure  the  stead- 
fastness of  his  faith? 

Thanks  to   the   precaution    of   the    architect 
whose  prudence  the  Master  praises  (Matt.  7  :  24, 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  8  7 

25),  the  theologian  will  be  freed  from  the  servi- 
tude to  which  he  is  condemned  if  he  imposes 
upon  himself  the  task  of  recounting  or  scientifi- 
cally expressing  his  individual  experience  ;  he 
will  escape  the  torture  of  observing  the  states 
of  his  soul,  of  analyzing  his  thought  and  his 
sentiments,  of  following  the  oscillations  of  his 
piety,  of  measuring  the  temperature  of  his 
religious  emotions,  of  submitting  his  Christian 
self  to  the  manipulations  of  an  experimentation 
multiplied,  controlled,  corrected  without  ceasing. 
And  what  would  be  the  result  of  such  a  gigantic 
work  ?  Superficial  spirits  and  gross  consciences 
would  pride  themselves  on  their  petty  progress 
and  victory ;  they  would  transform  the  divine 
graces  into  human  pretentions ;  from  their  privi- 
leges they  would  derive  the  right  to  condemn 
others  in  their  own  eyes  less  advanced  than 
themselves  ;  they  would  repeat,  doubtless  uncon- 
sciously, the  prayer  of  the  Pharisee.  Others, 
righteous  and  truly  pious  spirits,  would  become 
profoundly  convinced  of  the  insufficiency  and 
weakness  of  their  inner  religion ;  they  would  feel 
the  emptiness  of  their  experiences  in  comparison 
with  that  which  their  God  demands ;  they  would 
accuse  themselves  of  lukewarmness,  of  infidelity, 
of  cowardice  ;  they  would  deplore  the  incredulity 
of  their  faith  and  the  egotism  of  their  charity ; 
they  would  pass  upon  themselves  a  sentence  of 


88  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

unreserved  condemnation  ;  they  would  give  them- 
selves up  without  mercy  to  eternal  misery ;  they 
would  perish  in  a  wreckage  the  more  tragic  ac- 
cording as  their  efforts  had  been  the  more 
sincere.  In  other  words,  the  abyss  of  presump- 
tion, or  of  despair — these  are  the  inevitable 
issues  open  to  him  who  does  not  know  how  to 
withdraw  from  himself,  who  persists  in  seeking 
in  his  personal  experiences  the  material  of  his 
religious  testimony  and  the  substance  of  his  dog- 
matic formulas.  The  theologian,  in  fact,  does  not 
come  under  a  law  different  from  that  which  gov- 
erns the  Christian.  If  it  is  true  that  the  founda- 
tion of  our  peace  and  of  our  strength,  of  our  life 
and  our  joy,  rests  elsewhere  than  on  the  sands  of 
our  emotions,  our  reflections,  our  resolutions,  it 
is  then  very  evident  that  the  dogmatician  who 
would  make  his  own  consciousness  the  founda- 
tion and  the  sanction  of  his  scientific  work  would 
undertake  a  fatal  task,  and  would  finally  be  swept 
into  the  abyss. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  neither  Schleier- 
macher  nor  any  one  of  his  disciples,  conservative 
or  progressive,  falls  under  this  judgment.  There 
is  not  a  single  theorist  of  personal  experience 
who,  in  fact,  has  resolutely  committed  himself  to 
the  course  whose  dangers  we  have  indicated. 
This  is  true  because  there  is  not  a  single  theo- 
logian who,  in  giving  account  of  his  own  experi- 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  89 

ence,  has  been  able  to  disregard  the  factors 
which  constitute  or  guarantee  precisely  the 
Christian  character  of  his  individual  experience. 
The  very  fact  of  his  Christian  consciousness  im- 
plies and  presupposes  a  criterion  independent  of 
the  subjective  states  of  mind  of  the  theologian,  a 
type  with  which  he  compares  himself  and  by 
which  he  judges  himself,  a  sanction  from  which 
he  does  not  mean  to  free  himself.  Hence,  these 
dogmatists  themselves  indicate  to  us  the  direc- 
tion in  which  it  is  necessary  to  proceed  in  order 
to  rectify  their  error  or  fill  up  the  gap  in  their 
procedure.  The  more  or  less  important  position 
which  each  of  these  theologians  gives  to  the 
Holy  Scriptures  or  to  ecclesiastical  traditions 
would  alone  suffice  to  show  us  that  their  individu- 
alism is  not  absolute  and  that  they  provide  for 
themselves  a  certain  counterpoise  and  control. 
But  how  do  Schleiermacher  and  the  majority  of 
the  dogmaticians  faithful  to  his  method  proceed  ? 
They  uniformly  develop  first  the  content  of  their 
own  Christian  consciousness  and  analyze  the 
elements  which  constitute  it.  It  is  only  after  this 
has  been  done  that  they  propose  to  have  recourse 
to  the  testimony  of  the  ecclesiastical  tradition 
and  to  the  authority  of  Holy  Scripture.  This  sub- 
sequent examination  is  charged  with  the  task  of 
justifying  the  results  acquired  by  the  psycho- 
logical and  religious  analysis.  The  least  fault 


90  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  this  process  consists  in  its  strange  illusion. 
Ecclesiastical  consensus  and  scriptural  proof, 
invoked  secondarily,  and  often  developed  with 
a  grand  display  of  erudition,  come  too  late  and 
too  often  appear  merely  as  a  display.  The 
dogmatician  has  already  made  his  campaign;  his 
position  is  fortified  ;  he  would  not  consent  to  re- 
tire from  it  after  having  made  his  conquest  so 
laboriously.  If  necessary,  he  will  blandly  hunt 
up  texts  to  accord  with  his  results ;  he  will  bend 
the  declarations  of  Holy  Scripture  or  the  ecclesi- 
astical symbols  to  the  exigencies  of  his  thought ; 
he  will  hot  shrink  from  equivocal  compromises 
and  questionable  accommodations  ;  he  will  sin 
against  perspicuity,  if  not  against  honesty  and 
integrity.  There  are  illustrious  examples  which 
show  that  these  fears  are  not  chimerical. 

III. 

To  solve  the  problem  of  the  source  of  faith, 
it  will  suffice  to  follow  seriously  the  hints  which 
Schleiermacher  himself  gives  us,  and  which  the 
majority  of  contemporary  theologians  pursue  with 
more  or  less  consistency  and  clearness. 

If  it  is  true  that  dogmatics  creates  nothing  by 
itself,  if  it  is  limited  to  a  scientific  exposition  of  the 
affirmations  of  the  Protestant  faith,  then  the  ques- 
tion of  the  source  of  dogmatics  is  identical  with 
the  question  of  the  source  of  faith.  In  a  word, 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  9  I 

at  this  point  the  position  of  the  dogmatist  is  not 
different  from  that  of  the  believer ;  he  finds  his 
base  of  operation  in  the  midst  of  the  Christian 
community  ;  his  task  consists  in  analyzing  the 
faith  of  the  church,  in  developing  its  content,  in 
connecting  together  its  affirmations;  he  has  noth- 
ing to  add  to  that,  nothing  to  take  from  it.  The 
theologian  is  here  distinguished  from  the  simple 
believer  only  in  that  the  former  develops  into- 
severely  scientific  propositions  what  the  latter  pos- 
sesses in  a  state  of  immediate  certainty  and  of 
involved  truth,  so  to  speak ;  but  both  draw  the 
substance  of  their  faith  from  a  common  source, 
from  an  identical  spiritual  treasury. 

What,  then,  is  this  living  source  whence  pro- 
ceeds the  faith  of  the  Protestant  Christian?  The 
answer  could  not  be  ambiguous.  It  is  the  Gospel, 
that  is,  the  revelation  of  the  grace  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ;  the  Gospel  which,  by  its  redemptive 
and  sanctifying  power,  awakes,  in  the  soul  thirst- 
ing for  forgiveness  and  righteousness,  confidence 
in  the  eternal  mercy,  certainty  of  forgiveness  and 
divine  adoption,  victorious  power  over  sin  and 
the  world.  Such  is  the  unique  object  of  the 
Christian  faith,  its  sovereign  and  permanent 
principle. 

What  conclusion?  This  :  Faith  is  the  legiti- 
mate and  pure  source  of  dogmatics  only  when  it 
is  in  union  with  the  divine  factor  which  inspires 


92  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

it  and  v/hich,  without  ceasing,  conditions  and 
establishes  it.*  The  source  of  dogmatics  is  that 
faith  which  has  assimilated  to  itself  the  eternal 
essence  of  the  Gospel,  or  the  Gospel  in  its  appre- 
hension by  the  mysterious  power  of  faith.  To 
isolate  faith  from  the  divine  agent  which  has 
created  it  and  which  sustains  it,  to  deprive  it  of 
the  positive  content  which  it  draws  from  revela- 
tion— that  is  to  dry  the  sap  which  alone  gives  it 
life  and  preserves  it;  that  is  to  tear  it  up  by  the 
roots  and  take  away  its  nourishment;  it  is  to  con- 
demn the  soul  to  feed  itself  on  its  own  hunger. 
It  is,  indeed,  very  true  that  the  faith  whose 
affirmations  the  dogmatist  should  develop  and 
analyze  exists  in  a  state  of  religious  experi- 
ence in  the  living  member  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity; but  that  experience  is  not  religious  and 
Christian,  hence  is  not  the  object  and  source  of 
dogmatics,  except  in  so  far  as  it  identifies  itself 
with  the  divine  content  of  the  evangelical  revela- 
tion. It  follows,therefore,that,  properly  understood 
and  referred  back  to  their  full  and  complete  sig- 
nificance, the  two  theses,  "the  source  of  dog- 
matics is  faith,"  and  "the  source  of  dogmatics  is 

1  LUTHER,  Cat.  Major,  I,  3:  "  Haec  duo,  fides  et  Deus,  una 
copula  conjugenda  sunt."  Operationes  in  Psalmos  (ed.  Erl.  Opera 
latin,  XIV,  259):  "Objectum  fidei  et  spei  est  Deus  promissor  gra- 
tuitus  seu  ipsum  verbum  promittentis  atque  aliud  nihil."  MELANC- 
THON,  Apol.  Conf.  Aug.,  II,  50:  "  Inter  se  correlative  comparat 
et  connecti  promissionem  et  fidem." 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  93 

the  Gospel, "far  from  excluding  and  contradicting 
each  other,  complement  and  legitimize  each  other.1 
Suppress  one  of  these  two  terms  and  you  will  fall 
either  into  a  subjectivism  without  any  positive 
control  or  into  an  objectivism  without  any  inner 
life  ;  you  will  commit  either  the  error  of  the 
mystics  who  disdain  the  realities  of  history  or 
that  of  the  traditionalists  who  lose  sight  of  the 
interests  of  piety." 

1  Schleiermacher  at  times  happily  announced  the  identity  of 
these  two  formulas;  unfortunately,  he  did  not  turn  to  account  suf- 
ficiently the  valuable  hints  which  he  himself  gave.  See,  for  ex- 
ample, Der  christliche  Glaube,  §  19  :  "  Es  gibt  nur  eine  Quelle, 
aus  welcher  alle  christliche  Lehre  abgeleitet  wird,  namlich  die 
Selbstverkiindigung  Christi,  und  nur  eine  Art,  wie  die  Lehre, 
vollkommener  oder  unvollkommener,  aus  dem  frommen  Bewusst- 
seinselbst  und  dem  unmittelbaren  Ausdruck  desselben  entsteht." 

3 "Christianity  is  both  subjective  and  objective;  only  by 
being  both  of  these  can  it  be  the  religion  of  salvation.  It  is  an 
objective  entity,  since  the  redemptive  work  comes  from  God  and 
is  consummated  only  by  the  grace  of  God  manifested  in  Jesus,  the 
only  begotten  Son.  But  the  Gospel  is  not  the  less  certainly  sub- 
jective, since  its  mighty  power  cannot  be  realized,  from  beginning 
to  end,  save  by  the  inner  renewal  of  man.  Remove  that  exterior 
element  revealed  to  us  by  historical  Christianity,  and  you  make 
Christianity  the  race  course  for  fantasies  of  speculation  and  illu- 
minism.  Suppress  the  inner  side,  that  which  Paul  called  'the 
life  hidden  with  Christ  in  God '  (Col.  3  :  3),  that  is,  the  personal 
union  with  Jesus  and  the  divine  power  on  which  it  depends  — 
religion  becomes  at  once  and  above  all  else  a  matter  of  intellectu- 
alism  or  practical  stagnation.  The  subjective  without  the  ob- 
jective is  salvation  without  Christ,  an  illusion.  The  objective 
without  the  subjective  is  Christ  without  the  intimacy  of  faith,  a 
chimera." — BOVON,  Dogmatique  chritienne,  Vol.  I,  p.  96. 


94  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

The  solution  we  are  trying  to  give  to  the 
problem  of  the  source  of  dogmatics  clarifies  the 
developments  included  in  the  preceding  chapters, 
particularly  the  definition  we  have  given  to  dogma 
and  dogmatic  science.  Thus  appears  the  com- 
plete meaning  which  we  attach  to  the  terms 
"religious  experience"  and  "  Christian  conscious- 
ness," frequently  employed.  We  do  not  mean 
by  "experiences"  the  states  of  mind  independent 
of  the  objective  factor  which  determines  them, 
and  "Christian  consciousness"  is  not,  in  our  esti- 
mation, an  abstract  form,  deprived  of  all  positive 
content ;  far  from  it.  It  deserves  that  good  name 
only  in  so  far  as  it  draws  its  nourishment  and  its 
substance  from  the  rich  soil  of  the  evangelical  reve- 
lation. Thus  we  have  been  careful  to  note  that 
the  Christian  consciousness  is  the  child  of  the  Gos- 
pel ;  that  it  has  been  formed  and  has  developed 
itself  under  the  constant  influence  of  a  divine 
power ;  that  it  is,  to  tell  the  truth,  only  the  Spirit 
of  God  working  in  the  life  of  believers,  not  by 
means  of  a  magical  illumination,  but  through 
the  testimony  whose  center  and  object  is  the 
Savior. 

Is  it  an  illusion  to  think  that  this  manner  of 
presenting  the  problem  and  of  formulating  its 
solution  is  putting  into  operation  and  consistent 
practice  the  religious  principle  of  the  Reforma- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  9 5 

tion,1  taken  up  again,  doubtless,  but  imperfectly 
applied,  by  Schleiermacher?  In  making  dog- 
matics the  scientific  exposition  of  the  Christian 
faith,  we  do  not  assign  to  it  the  purely  subjective 
function  of  describing  the  states  of  mind  of  the 
Christian  isolated  from  their  objective  principle ; 
we  propose  to  affirm  vigorously  the  spiritual  reali- 
ties assurance  of  which  the  Christian  acquires  or 
possesses  by  means  of  his  faith  in  Jesus  Christ 
and  his  communion  with  the  Savior.3 

Thus  understood,  the  question  of  the  source 

•The  Reformers  refer  indefinitely  to  the  Holy  Scripture,  the 
Word  of  God,  or  the  Gospel  as  the  source  and  norm  of  faith  and 
theology  (LUTHER,  Artie.  Smalc.,  II,  2;  MELANCTHON,  Corp. 
Reform.,  XXI,  82 ;  I,  143;  ZWINGLI,  Conclusions,  V,  XV,  XVI; 
CALVIN,  Inst.  Chrlt.,  I,  6-9;  Formul.  Cone.,  Preface;  Confess. 
Helv.  Posterior,  Art.  l).  Ritschl  would  also  make  the  New  Testa- 
ment the  source  and  rule  of  systematic  theology  (Rechtfertigung 
und  Versohnung,  II*,  §§2,  3).  We  will  try  to  explain  later 
(Chaps.  V,  VI),  why  the  substitution  of  the  Gospel  or  Revelation 
for  the  Holy  Scriptures  seems  to  us  necessary. 

*For  the  thesis  formulated  by  Schleiermacher  (Der  christ- 
liche  Glaube,  §  15):  "Christliche  Glaubenssatze  sind  Auffassungen 
der  christliche  frommen  Gemuthszustande  in  der  Rede  darge- 
stellt"  ("Christian  dogmas  are  the  conceptions  of  the  soul  in  a  state 
of  Christian  piety,  expounded  in  discourse  "),  Reischle  proposes  to 
substitute  the  following,  which  seems  to  us  very  pertinent: 
"  Christliche  Glaubenssatze  sind  Bezeichnungen  derjenigen  Wirk- 
lichkeit,  welche  dem  Christen  in  Vertrauen  zu  Christo  gewiss  und 
erfahrbar  werden  soil"  ("Christian  dogmas  are  the  marks  of  that 
reality  which  should  be  certain  and  assured  in  the  Christian  in 
his  confidence  in  Christ").— Zeitschrift  fur  Theologie  und  Kir  eke, 
Vol.  1(1889),  p.  349- 


96  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  dogmatics  is  enlarged  and  elevated ;  it  neces- 
sarily calls  forth  another  problem,  which  throws 
light  upon  it,  complements  and  strengthens  it : 
What  is  the  norm  of  Protestant  dogmatics  ?  That 
is  the  question  we  shall  now  try  to  discuss. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  NORM  OF  PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS. 

Nature  of  the  question :  the  problem  of  the  norm  of  dog- 
matics is  equivalent  to  that  of  authority  in  matters  of  faith. 

I.  Elimination  of  the  legal  authority  of  confessions  of  faith.— 
The  Catholic  point  of  view. — The  point  of  view  of  Protestant 
orthodoxy.— Examination  of  the  solution  proposed  by  confes- 
sional theology. —  Negative  results:  the  confessional  solution  is 
contrary  to  the  religious  principle  of  the  Reformation;  it  is 
refuted  by  the  testimony  which  the  creeds  render  to  themselves  ; 
it  is  unrealizable  in  practice ;  it  has  never  been  applied  without 
serious  reservations  and  numerous  exceptions.—  Positive  results  : 
historical  and  religious  importance  of  the  confessions  of  faith; 
authentic  documents  of  the  Protestant  faith. 

II.  Elimination  of  the  legal  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. — 
Examination  of  the  solution  proposed  by  traditional  orthodoxy. — 
Negative  results  :  the  general  surrender  of  the  doctrine  of  literal 
inspiration ;  necessity  of  drawing  conclusions  from  these  premises ; 
impossibility  of  application  of  the  orthodox  solution  ;  contradiction 
between  the  traditional  theory  and  the  constant  practice  of  its  own 
adherents. —  Positive  results:  the  Bible  the  witness  of  the  Gospel; 
Christ  the  source  of  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  the 
nature  and  limits  of  this  authority. 

III.  Attempt  at  a  positive  solution. —  Distinctive  marks  of  reli- 
gious authority  in  the  Protestant  church. — The  Gospel,  the  Word  of 
God,  the  Christian  revelation,  Jesus  Christ ;  formal  difference  but 
fundamental  identity  of  these  terms. —  Spiritual  and  experimental 
legalization  in  the  evangelical  and  Protestant  sense.— Answer  to 
the  objections  opposed  to  this  solution. — The  new  question  raised 
by  the  results  acquired  :  How  shall  the  norm  of  Protestant  dog- 
matics be  applied? 

To  SOLVE  the  problem  of  the  norm  of  Protes- 
tant dogmatics  it  is  necessary  to  return  to  the 
97 


98  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

invariable  point  of  departure  of  our  researches — 
the  definition  of  dogmatic  science.  If  Protestant 
dogmatics  is  the  systematic  exposition  of  the 
Protestant  faith,  the  latter  has  the  same  norm  as 
the  former.  The  rule  which  governs  the  dogma- 
tician  is  precisely  the  same  religious  authority  to 
which  he  submits  himself  as  a  Christian.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  at  this  point :  the  question  we 
have  stated  is  equivalent  to  that  of  authority  in 
matters  of  faith. 

To  embrace  this  problem  in  all  its  extent,  to 
treat  it  on  every  side  and  reach  a  conclusion 
which  would  take  account  of  all  the  elements  of 
so  great  a  subject,  it  would  be  necessary  to  leap 
over  the  limits  of  a  mere  introduction  to  dog- 
matics and  enter  into  the  very  heart  of  the 
theological  system  itself.  But  without  infringing 
on  so  great  a  field,  it  is  possible  and  necessary  to 
state  some  of  the  elements  and  indicate  some  of 
the  principles  calculated  to  orient  and  assure  the 
course  to  be  pursued  by  the  dogmatician.  That 
task  is  made  easy  for  us  by  certain  excellent 
works  which  have  recently  appeared  in  French 
literature,  and  which  justify  the  hope  that  we  are 
approaching  a  substantial  consensus  of  opinion 
on  the  part  of  all  theologians  concerned  for  the 
interests  of  piety  and  for  the  independence  of 
scientific  thought. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  99 

I. 

Nothing  is  simpler  or  more  comprehensible 
than  the  answer  of  Catholicism  to  the  question 
stated.  In  the  Catholic  church  the  norm  of  dog- 
matics could  be  only  the  religious  authority  in 
vogue  in  that  church,  that  is,  the  decisions  of  the 
councils,  to  which  must  be  added,  according  to 
the  Roman  doctrine,  the  decrees  of  the  pope. 
Greek  Catholicism  erects  into  supreme  authori- 
ty the  creeds  of  the  seven  ecumenical  councils 
whose  plenary  inspiration  it  maintains.  Roman 
Catholicism  maintains  that  the  papacy  is  the 
permanent  incarnation  and  infallible  organ  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  The  church  forming,  by  di- 
vine right,  a  judicial  organism,  the  condition  of 
entrance  into  it  is  not  primarily  a  spiritual  and 
inner  condition ;  it  arises  rather  from  the  sphere 
of  law  and  corresponds  to  the  bond  which  attaches 
the  citizen  to  the  state ;  it  is  a  condition  of  exte- 
rior and  legal  sanction.  Within  the  realm  of 
such  a  church  the  confession  of  faith  is  a  judicial 
authority  which,  after  the  fashion  of  a  political 
constitution,  exacts  obedience  and  demands  sub- 
mission. That  obedience  does  not  need  to  be 
intelligent,  and  the  submission  is  very  often 
reduced  to  a  passive  acquiescence,  to  "implicit 
faith"  which  accepts  in  toto  the  traditional  creed 
and  surrenders  blindly  to  ecclesiastical  tutelage. 
We  have  tried  above  to  indicate  the  results 


100  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  this  spiritual  surrender  of  the  individual  into 
the  hands  of  an  external  power  foreign  to  the  con- 
science of  the  believer.1  It  is  of  especial  impor- 
tance, with  reference  to  the  field  which  is  the 
object  of  our  present  inquiry,  to  note  that  Catholi- 
cism would  belie  itself  if  it  should  admit,  as  the 
norm  of  its  dogmatics,  any  purely  spiritual  authori- 
ty ;  that  it  glories  in  possessing,  in  the  canons  of 
its  councils  and  the  bulls  of  its  popes,  a  concrete 
and  tangible  organism  of  firm  and  precise  rules, 
tracing  for  its  children  a  clear  and  sure  pathway, 
preserving  them  from  the  aberrations  of  the  indi- 
vidual mind,  relieving  them  of  heavy  and  fearful 
responsibility,  guaranteeing  to  them  a  monopoly 
of  religious  truth  and  access  to  necessary  graces 
and  supreme  felicities. 

Although  the  Reformation  had  mercilessly 
demolished  the  grand  illusion  which  the  Catholic 
church  nourished  in  the  hearts  of  its  followers, 
the  fiction  of  an  external  and  legal  authority 
again  soon  found  life  and  credence  in  our  Prot- 
estant communities ;  it  imposed  itself,  under  a 
double  form,  upon  the  spirits  and  consciences  of 
believers,  under  the  form  of  verbal  inspiration  of 
the  Scriptures  and  the  form  of  the  Lutheran  or 
Reformed  confessionalism.  In  the  orthodox  pe- 
riod, which  succeeded  the  creative  epoch  of  the 
Reformation,  the  confessions  of  faith,  the  official 

'  See  Chap.  II,  §  I. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  I  o  I 

and  obligatory  creeds,  finally  gained  the  ascen- 
dency over  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  the  mean- 
ing and  interpretation  of  which  they  assumed  to 
establish  and  regulate.  It  is  well  to  note  briefly 
the  very  palpable  and  massive  doctrine  which 
raised  the  letter  and  the  content  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical creeds  into  the  norm  of  Protestant  dog- 
matics. Doubtless,  rigid  confessionalism  has  lost 
footing  among  our  Protestant  churches,  but  one 
would  be  strangely  mistaken  to  suppose  it  for- 
ever dead  ;  it  still  displays  offensive  renewals,  re- 
crudescences of  fighting  zeal  the  more  furious  as 
it  feels  the  ground  slip  from  under  its  feet ;  in 
each  of  these  passionate  attacks  —  desperate  ef- 
forts in  behalf  of  a  lost  cause  —  it  discloses  more 
clearly  its  inner  nature  and  reveals  itself  as  a  pite- 
ous counterfeit  of  Catholicism,  whose  power  and 
magnificence  it  does  not  possess,  but  whose  intol- 
erant spirit  and  despotic  bearing  it  does  maintain. 
Without  entering  upon  a  purely  negative 
polemic,  we  will  discuss  this  question  further  and 
briefly  indicate  in  what  consists  the  dogmatic 
value  of  confessions  of  faith,  what  they  cannot 
and  will  not  give  to  us,  and  the  services  which 
we  have  the  right  to  demand  and  expect  of  them. 
This  brief  examination  will  not  be  a  useless  di- 
gression, but  will  yield  a  direct  contribution  to 
the  study  of  the  problem  in  question  —  the  norm 
of  Protestant  dogmatics. 


102  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

A  word  first  as  to  the  creeds  of  the  ancient 
church,  which  have  been  honored  with  the  inex- 
act title  of  the  "  ecumenical  symbols."  The  au- 
thority of  these  symbols  is  confused  with  the 
authority  of '  the  churches  which  promulgated 
them  and  transmitted  them  to  us.  The  declara- 
tions and  the  attitude  of  our  Reformers  should 
not  deceive  us  as  to  the  character  and  trustworthi- 
ness of  the  dogmatic  formulas  bequeathed  by 
the  Catholic  church  to  Protestant  generations. 
These  formulas,  it  is  true,  have  been  placed  in 
the  official  documents  of  the  majority  of  evan- 
gelical communions.  Calvin  made  much  of  the 
so-called  apostolic  creed ;  Luther  extolled  the 
pretended  Athanasian  creed  as  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  works  of  the  Holy  Spirit  since  the  times 
of  the  apostles ;  Zwingli  found  in  the  "  ecumeni- 
cal symbols  "  the  faithful  expression  of  biblical 
doctrine;  Melancthon  holds  to  agreement  with 
the  doctrines  of  the  ancient  church,  and  finds 
thereby  the  proof  of  the  truthfulness  and  pure 
catholicity  of  the  leaders  of  the  Reformation; 
but,  in  spite  of  this  positive  and  conservative 
attitude  of  each  of  our  Reformers,  it  would  be 
singularly  imprudent  to  appeal  to  their  testimony 
and  example  in  order  to  restore  the  Catholic 
point  of  view  in  reference  to  the  appreciation  of 
the  ancient  creeds.  Between  that  point  of  view 
and  the  religious  principle  of  Protestantism  there 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  103 

is  a  positive  and  indestructible  contradiction. 
The  truly  Christian  and  evangelical  knowledge 
of  the  spiritual  and  inner  character  of  faith  is 
absolutely  antagonistic  to  the  Catholic  idea  and 
practice.  Upon  what  foundation  and  under  what 
title  did  the  Reformers  adhere  to  the  formulas  of 
Nicea  and  Chalcedon?  Is  it  a  passive  submis- 
sion to  exterior  and  legal  tradition  that  com- 
mands their  assent  and  determines  their  reso- 
lutely conservative  attitude?  By  no  means.  If 
they  accept  the  Catholic  christology  and  the- 
ology, if  they  make  indiscriminate  use  of  the 
formulas  elaborated  by  the  Fathers  and  sanc- 
tioned by  the  councils,  it  is  because  they  are  con- 
vinced that  the  ancient  creeds  are  in  actual 
agreement  with  the  religious  truth  taught  in  the 
Holy  Scriptures.  It  is  not  submission  to  the 
church,  it  is  their  obedience  to  the  Gospel,  that 
inspires  and  rules  their  words  and  conduct.  So 
true  is  this  that  they  put  the  stamp  of  their  own 
religious  thought  upon  the  theological  content 
and  formulation  of  the  "ecumenical"  symbols. 
If  they  found  in  the  documents  of  the  ancient 
church  the  expression  of  their  evangelical  faith, 
it  is  because  they  began  to  read  these  documents 
in  the  light  of  their  faith;  they  employed  old 
bottles  to  hold  new  wine,  but  at  many  points  the 
bottles  broke  and  the  wine  was  spilt.1 

'It  is    said    that    in    the    English-speaking    Presbyterian 


104  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

The  experience  of  the  Reformers  contains  a 
great  and  precious  lesson  for  us.  It  teaches  us 
to  take  as  against  the  confessions  of  faith,  of  which 
they  were  the  authors  and  guardians,  a  positive 
and  loyal  attitude,  freely  and  fully  in  harmony 
with  that  personal  and  inner  faith  whose  rights 
they  regained  by  opening  up  for  us  a  royal  road 
leading  straight  to  the  Gospel.  In  other  words, 
they  peremptorily  forbid  us  to  canonize  the  letter 
and  the  content  of  the  Protestant  creeds.  To 
raise  to  the  height  of  sovereign  and  indisputable 
rules  the  documents  by  which  Luther  and  Zwingli, 
Melancthon  and  Calvin  purposed,  not  to  found  a 
new  doctrine,  but  to  profess  their  faith  in  the  Gos- 
pel and  render  testimony  to  the  Christian  life, 
would  be  to  refute  their  teaching  and  betray  their 
example  and  cause.  Whether  it  be  the  Confes- 
sion of  Augsburg  or  of  La  Rochelle,  the  Catechism 
of  Heidelberg  or  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  not 
one  of  these  symbols  claims  to  be  for  us  an  un- 
changeable and  perfect  chart ;  to  confer  upon 
them  statutory  and  legal  authority  is  to  change 
the  natural  role  which  they  claim  for  themselves 
and  attack  the  very  principle  which  created  them. 
Is  it  necessary  to  cite  texts  ?  There  is  an  abun- 

churches  the  revision  of  the  Westminster  Confession  is  demanded 
by  many  of  the  most  pious  and  learned  theologians  and  laity. — 
See  BRIGGS,  Whither?  1889;  SCHAFF,  Creed  Revision  in  the 
Presbyterian  Churches,  1890;  WARFIELD,  On  the  Revision  of  the 
Confession  of  Faith,  1890. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  105 

dance  of  them.  Luther  made  a  tour  of  visitation 
and  inspection  among  the  communities  that  had 
responded  to  his  voice,  and  published  a  series  of 
articles  to  guide  and  instruct  the  spiritual  leaders 
of  these  communities.  How  did  he  introduce  these 
articles  so  as  to  make  them  acceptable  to  his  ad- 
herents ?  He  did  not  think  of  "  imposing  on  the 
conscience  of  the  believers  the  yoke  of  new  de- 
cretals, but  he  relied  upon  their  spontaneous 
response  and  the  free  adherence  of  their  love  to 
submit  themselves  to  these  new  propositions  until 
it  should  please  the  Holy  Spirit  to  guide  them  in 
finding  better  ones."1  In  elaborating  the  Con- 
fession of  Augsburg,  Melancthon  did  not  think  of 
formulating  a  final  and  infallible  creed  :  we  know 
with  what  care  and  perseverance  he  forced  him- 
self unceasingly  to  correct  and  improve  his  work. 
The  modifications  which  he  introduced  into  it  did 
not  concern  merely  the  form  and  style ;  they  ex- 
tended to  the  very  foundation  and  entered  into 
the  heart  of  some  of  the  most  controverted  doc- 
trines of  the  time. 2  The  prefaces  of  some  of  the 
most  important  creeds  of  the  Reformed  churches 
express  the  same  sentiment  as  did  Luther  and  his 

1  LUTHER,  Unterricht  der  Visitatoren  an  die  Pfarrherren  in 
Herzog  Heinrichs  zu  Sachsen  Fiirstenthum,  erste  und  grossere 
Vorrede  (1528,  ed.  Erlang.),  Vol.  XXIII,  esp.  p.  9. 

"Successive  revisions  of  the  years  1531,  1533,  1536,  1538, 
especially  1540  (Confessio  variata).  See,  also,  Art.  XV  of  the 
Augsburg  Confession  {Deritibus  ecclesiasticis). 


106  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

direct  co-workers.  The  promoters  of  the  Refor- 
mation did  not  aspire  to  dominate  the  faith  of 
their  brethren;  they  endeavored  only  to  con- 
tribute to  their  joy  (2  Cor.  I  :  24).1 

We  would  remind  those  who  would  impose 
upon  us  the  yoke  of  obligatory  creeds  that  it 
was  not  through  the  churches  that  confessions  of 
faith  first  took  on  a  judicial  character  and  placed 
themselves  under  an  official  sanction  ;  it  was  the 
civil  power  which,  identifying  itself  with  a  deter- 
mined confession,  renewed  the  traditions  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  —  I  was  about  to  say  the 
theory  and  practice  of  antique  paganism — by 
transforming  the  religious  affirmations  of  the 
church  into  authoritative  documents  incorporated 
in  the  laws  of  the  State,  imposed  by  force  and 
guarded  by  the  secular  power. 

But  let  us  enter  for  a  moment  into  the  thought 
of  those  we  oppose;  let  us  place  ourselves  on 
the  ground  of  rigorous  confessionalism  and  grant 
the  canonical  and  normative  value  of  the  creeds  : 
then,  indeed,  will  the  real  difficulties  arise  on  all 
sides  and  the  principle  of  external  authority,  ap- 
parently so  simple  and  convenient,  will  produce 
perplexities  recurring  without  ceasing. 

Born  of  the  practical  needs  of  the  churches, 
inspired  by  the  necessities  of  the  epoch,  all  the 

*Basileensis  prior,  Conclusion;  Scoticana  Confessio  fidei, 
Preface;  Helvetica  posterior,  Preface  (ed.  Niemeyer),  pp.  104,341, 
464. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  I  o 7 

confessions  of  faith  bear  the  imprint  of  the  times 
and  the  environment  which  witnessed  their  crea- 
tion ;  they  are  the  works  of  circumstance,  often 
the  works  of  polemics,  evolved  out  of  controver- 
sies of  which  we  are  sometimes  hardly  able  to 
comprehend  the  importance  or  even  grasp  the 
meaning. *  There  is  not  a  creed,  however  brief, 
which  does  not  contain  accidental  elements,  aimed 
at  certain  adversaries,  addressed  to  readers  not 
existing  today  ;  furnishing,  perhaps,  a  solution  for 
their  own  time,  but  not  answering  to  any  other 
actual  exigencies.  Or  shall  we  for  the  moment 
overlook  the  historical  setting  whose  distinct  mark 
each  document  bears,  and  put  all  the  confessions 
of  our  churches  on  the  same  level  ?  Will  one 
accord  the  same  credence  to  creeds  universally 
adopted  and  to  those  which  only  a  fraction  of  the 
Christian  world  or  of  Protestantism  has  recog- 
nized? Will  one  appeal  indiscriminately  to  the 
Confession  of  Augsburg  and  to  the  Formula  of 
Concord,  to  the  Catechism  of  Geneva  and  to  the 
Canons  of  Dortrecht,  to  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession and  to  the  Formula  consensus  Helveticif 
And  in  a  given  community,  shall  we  make  no 
difference  between  the  documents  of  the  creative 
period  and  the  works  of  a  later  epoch  of  less 
original  spirit  and  less  scope  ? 

'That  is  a  point  which Schleiermacher and  Vinet  have  raised 
and  which  has  often  been  insisted  upon  since  their  day. 


io8  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

These  questions  once  determined,  would  it 
then  be  possible  to  utilize  the  confessions  of 
faith  and  draw  from  them  our  dogmatic  formu- 
las ready  made  and  complete  ?  By  no  means. 
The  difficulties  of  detail  are  not  less  numerous 
than  the  difficulties  of  principle.  I  will  give 
only  one  example :  Our  Protestant  creeds  set 
forth  the  teachings  of  Scripture  by  an  exegesis 
whose  legitimacy  and  exactness  we  very  often 
repudiate.  The  hermeneutic  principles  practiced 
in  the  sixteenth  century  are  no  longer  ours,  and 
the  results  obtained  by  the  help  of  those  princi- 
ples often  appear  to  us  unreliable.  Shall  we  close 
our  eyes  to  these  differences  ?  Can  we  accept 
these  processes  of  interpretation,  a  method  of 
argumentation,  a  system  of  proofs  and  demon- 
stration, which  today  are  unhesitatingly  con- 
demned and  cannot  be  conscientiously  applied? 
Or,  to  clear  the  difficulties,  shall  we  try  to  com- 
promise between  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the 
creeds,  between  the  form  and  the  content,  the 
essential  and  the  accidental  ?  Such  an  effort 
would  assuredly  be  legitimate  and  praiseworthy, 
but  to  avoid  the  reproach  of  arbitrariness  there 
would  be  demanded  a  series  of  rare  qualifications 
and  infinitely  delicate  operations.  Large  and 
strong  theological  culture,  exact  and  complete 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  each  creed,  profound 
understanding  of  the  doctrines  set  forth,  certain 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 09 

discernment  of  the  accidental  needs  of  the  time 
and  of  the  permanent  interests  of  piety  —  in  truth, 
the  theologian  who  possessed  all  these  gifts 
would  be  worthy  and  doubtless  capable  of  formu- 
lating for  himself  a  confession  of  faith,  and  we 
could  not  have  the  heart  to  condemn  him  to  the 
task  of  restoring  the  old  creeds  and  torturing 
texts  in  order  to  get  out  of  them  a  problematical 
or  equivocal  meaning. 

If,  again,  we  compare  the  theology  of  our 
creeds  with  the  ideas  of  their  most  ardent 
defenders,  we  shall  see  that  confessionalism, 
sanctioned  in  theory,  is  practiced  by  its  adher- 
ents in  a  singularly  intermittent  manner.  Without 
dwelling  on  the  reproaches  of  "heterodoxy"  and 
"heresy"  which  the  most  distinguished  represen- 
tatives of  confessionalism  periodically  exchange 
and  vie  in  throwing  at  each  other,  it  is  allowable 
to  submit  that  school  to  a  summary  examination 
the  result  of  which  would  hardly  be  favorable  to 
the  canonization  of  the  creeds.  How  many 
points  there  are  on  which  there  breaks  out  dis- 
sent between  the  formal  text  of  our  confessions 
and  the  most  robust  and  resolute  orthodoxy  of 
our  times!  The  ninth  article  of  the  Augsburg 
Confession  teaches  that  baptism  is  necessary 
for  salvation ; '  the  eleventh  article  supports  pri- 

J"De  baptismo  decent,  quod  sit  necessarius  ad  salutem" 
(German  text:  "Von  der  Taufe  wird  gelehrt,  dass  sie  nothig 
sei"). 


no  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

vate  confession;1  the  Apology  preserves  the 
three  sacraments,  repentance  with  baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper;2  the  smaller  catechism  of 
Luther  recommends  to  believers  the  sign  of  the 
cross  before  the  morning  prayer;3  the  demon- 
ology  of  the  creeds,  especially  of  those  which 
proceed  from  Luther,  is  so  massive  that  the  m6st 
decidedly  orthodox  followers  tacitly  agree  to 
conceal  it.  The  majority  of  the  confessions  fall 
back  for  support  upon  the  pretended  Athanasian 
formula  which  makes  eternal  blessedness  depend 
on  the  admission  of  a  theory  as  subtle  as  it  is 
anti-biblical;4  the  Gallican  Confession  teaches 
that  the  great  majority  of  men  are  predestined 
by  the  will  of  God  to  endless  torments;5  the 
Formula  consensus  Helvetici  maintains  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  vowel  points  of  the  text  of  the  Old 
Testament.6  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these 

*"De  confessione  docent,  quod  absolutio  privata  retinenda 
sit  quamquam  in  confessione  non  sit  necessaria  omnium  delic- 
torum  enumeratio." 

•  Apology,  VII,  4:  "Vere  igitur  sunt  sacramenta,  Baptismus, 
Coena  domini,  absolutio,  quae  est  sacramentum  poenitentiae.'1 

*  Append.,  I,  i :  "Mane  cum  surgis  e  lecto,  signabis  te  signo 
sanctae  crucis  dicens " 

4"Quicunque  vult  salvus  esse,  ante  omnia  opus  habet,  ut 
teneat  catholicam  fidem.  Quam  nisi  quisque  integram  inviola- 
tamque  servaverit,  absque  dubio  in  aeternum  peribit"  (§§l,  2; 
cf.  §§26,  27,  40). 

*Conf.  Gallicana,  Art.  XII;  cf.  Con/.  Belgica,  Art.  XVII. 

'Canons  I-III.     It  is  the  second  canon  which  contains  the 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 1 1 

examples  ;  these  that  I  have  mentioned  show  with 
sufficient  clearness  that  on  many  points  the  au- 
thority of  the  creeds  is  abandoned  by  the 
same  people  who,  in  theory,  constitute  them- 
selves the  partisans  and  advocates  of  the  creeds. 
But  without  considering  further  the  present 
situation,  let  us  take  a  backward  look  and  con- 
sult history.  Who  would  dare  to  maintain  that 
the  religious  life  of  our  evangelical  churches  is 
in  direct  proportion  to  the  respect  or  culture  ac- 
corded to  the  confessions  of  faith?  What  have 
been  the  most  virile  and  most  fruitful  epochs  in 
the  development  of  Protestantism?  Is  it  under 
the  regime  of  rigid  orthodoxy  and  extreme  con- 
fessionalism  that  piety  has  been  richest  and  most 
vigorous  and  has  borne  its  most  beautiful  fruits 
and  produced  its  best  works?  Does  not  this  retro- 
spect confirm  an  oft-renewed  experience?  Does 
it  not  recall  to  our  minds  that  living  faith  is  some- 
thing other  than  adherence  to  a  formula  or  sub- 
mission to  a  rule;  that  correctness  in  doctrine 
does  not  by  any  means  assure  sanity  of  the  moral 
life  and  warmth  of  charity;  that  the  most  valiant 
disciples  of  Christ  have  too  often  been  the  out- 
casts or  the  victims  of  official  orthodoxy?1  If 

famous  definition  of  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament:  "Turn  quoad 
consonas  turn  quoad  vocalia,  sive  puncta  ipsa  sive  punctorum 
saltern  potestatem,  et  turn  quoad  res,  turn  quoad  verba  OfbrvtvffTot 
— (ed.  Niemeyer,  pp.  730,  731). 

'In  1695  Pastor  Schelwig,  of  Danzig,  pointed  out  150  here- 


112  AN  INTROD UCTION  TO 

this  is  true,  why  should  it  be  necessary  to  be- 
stow a  thought  on  the  call  to  arms  by  which 
we  are  sometimes  summoned  in  favor  of  the 
authoritative  character  of  the  so-called  Apostolic 
Creed,  in  favor  of  official  and  obligatory  litur- 
gies, superannuated  and  often  unintelligible  con- 
fessions of  faith?  What  shall  we  say  of  those  who 
would  again  place  people  and  pastors,  ministers 
and  teachers,  under  the  yoke  of  these  external 
rules?  Should  we  not  fear  that  the  imprudent 
people  who  devote  themselves  to  this  piece  of 
patchwork  will  strike  their  consciences  a  severe 
blow,  or,  what  would  be  no  less  fatal,  will  be- 
come, in  spite  of  themselves,  guilty  of  hypocrisy, 
opening  the  door  to  doubtful  accommodations,  to 
equivocal  silence,  to  disloyalty  and  falsehood? 
Certainly  it  would  be  rash  to  question  the  sincer- 
ity of  those  who  agitate  this  method,  frightening 
simple  souls,  and  uttering  the  cry  of  alarm  in  or- 
der to  impose  upon  the  sons  of  the  Reformation 
a  servitude  far  heavier,  but  less  magnificent,  than 
the  chains  broken  by  our  fathers;  it  would  be  un- 
just to  suppose  that  those  who  load  heavy  bur- 
dens on  the  shoulders  of  their  brethren  would 
not  themselves  lift  a  little  finger;  but  the  experi- 
sies  in  the  works  of  Spener.  The  same  year  Professor  Deutsch- 
mann  was  commissioned  by  the  faculty  of  theology  of  Witten- 
berg to  make  a  catalogue  of  the  heresies  and  errors  of  Spener;  he 
discovered  264.— See  GRUNBERG,  Philipp  Jakob  Spener,  Vol.  I 
(Gottingen,  1893),  pp.  276-92,  297-303. 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 1 3 

ence  of  the  centuries  moves  us  to  affirm  that 
these  simple  or  skilful  people  who  expect  the  sal- 
vation of  the  church  and  of  society  to  come  out 
of  a  confessional  reaction  are  attempting  the  im- 
possible enterprise  of  pursuing  Satan  by  calling 
to  their  aid  the  prince  of  devils. 

However,  our  ardor  in  opposing  the  canoniza- 
tion of  the  creeds  erected  into  religious  authori- 
ty and  rules  of  dogma  would  be  blind  and  fatal 
if  it  caused  us  to  forget  that  ecclesiastical  creeds, 
properly  understood  and  wisely  used,  are  cal- 
culated to  render  us  valuable  and  indispensable 
service.  The  Protestant  dogmatist  who  ignores 
or  neglects  the  documents  in  which  our  churches 
have  "confessed  their  faith"  and  formulated 
their  doctrine  exposes  himself  to  dangers  and 
errors  against  which  one  could  not  be  too  well 
fortified.  Although  the  symbols  may  not  and 
ought  not  to  be  infallible  "decretals,"  the  majori- 
ty of  them  attach  themselves  so  closely  to  the 
origin  of  our  churches,  they  are  such  important 
and  necessary  factors  of  our  religious  history, 
they  establish  or  preserve  with  so  great  force  and 
originality  the  creative  and  directing  principles 
of  our  Christian  renaissance,  that  they  will  re- 
main forever  the  classical  monuments  of  Protes- 
tantism and  the  authentic  witnesses  of  its  piety 
and  its  beliefs.  Therefore 'it  is  to  these  original 
sources  that  we  must  ever  return  in  order  to  rec- 


II4  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

ognize  and  appreciate  the  primitive  inspiration 
and  guiding  thought  of  the  Protestant  life  and 
doctrine.  It  is  not  an  interest  of  pure  historical 
curiosity  which  ought  to  bring  us  back  unceasing- 
ly to  these  most  venerable  documents;  recogni- 
tion, understanding  of  our  confessions  of  faith,  is 
the  necessary  condition  of  all  true  dogmatic 
progress.  If  it  is  true  that  the  religious  princi- 
ples of  Protestantism  have  been  expressed,  in  dif- 
ferent degrees  and  with  unequal  clearness  and 
vigor,  in  the  official  declarations  of  our  churches, 
then  we  should  conclude  that  the  normal  and 
fruitful  development  of  these  principles  will  have 
its  organic  development  only  from  the  germ 
whose  growth  has  brought  life  and  liberty  to 
Christianity.  Our  vocation,  then,  is  not  to  ig- 
nore or  to  destroy  the  tradition  inaugurated  by 
our  creeds,  but  to  translate  clearly  and  apply 
consistently  the  truth  regained  by  our  Reform- 
ers ;  to  eliminate  the  Catholic  leaven  which  was 
mingled  with  the  ferment  of  the  Gospel  and  which 
weakens  its  power  and  expansion ;  to  disengage, 
to  place  in  full  light,  to  render  completely  dom- 
inant the  type  of  religious  life  and  faith  contained 
in  the  dignified,  though  constantly  improvable, 
charters  of  the  church  of  Luther,  of  Zwingli,  and 
of  Calvin.  The  more  the  dogmatist  succeeds  in 
fulfilling,  not  in  abolishing,  the  ecclesiastical  tra- 
dition, that  is,  in  restoring  to  its  permanent  mean- 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 1 5 

ing  and  regaining  in  all  its  religious  depth  the 
testimony  of  our  fathers,  the  more  will  he  truly 
conform  to  the  spirit  and  to  the  principle  of  our 
Reformers,  the  more  will  he  perform  a  task  use- 
ful to  the  church,  a  labor  eminently  evangelical 
and  Protestant. 

Have  I  succeeded  in  showing  that  the  renunci- 
ation of  legal  and  statutory  authority  of  confes- 
sions of  faith  does  not  imply  by  any  means  the 
breaking  of  the  beneficent  chain  which  binds  us 
to  the  heroic  days  of  the  Reformation?  As 
grateful  and  respectful  sons,  our  ambition  is  to 
unite  with  a  fidelity,  which  piously  receives  the 
immortal  legacy  of  the  past,  the  courage  and 
liberty  which  do  honor  to  the  memory  of  the 
Fathers,  and  which  we  find  in  their  inspiring 
example ;  not  merely  to  profit  by  their  treasures 
and  draw  from  them  new  riches  each  day,  but 
also  to  sacrifice  the  false  or  doubtful  values 
which  tarnish  the  pure  gold  of  their  glorious 
legacy. 

Whatever  may  be  the  differences  which  main- 
tain between  the  confessions  of  faith  of  our 
evangelical  churches,  they  all  agree  upon  this 
point:  they  submit  themselves  to  the  constant 
control  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  they  demand 
that  they  shall  be  judged,  and,  if  need  be,  cor- 
rected, according  to  the  light  of  what  has  re- 


1 1 6  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

cently  been  called  the  "formal  principle"1  of 
Protestantism.  Let  us  follow  the  guidance  of 
our  creeds ;  let  us  not  hesitate  to  receive  their 
declarations  and  weigh  their  testimony;  let  us 
also  open  the  book  of  which  they  wished  to  be 
only  the  docile  interpreters.  Is  the  Bible  the 
supreme  religious  authority,  and  can  it  serve  as 
the  norm  of  Protestant  dogmatics  ?2 

The  absolute  authority  of  the  Bible,  raised  in 
all  its  parts  to  the  sovereign  rule  of  faith,  can- 
not be  maintained  and  justified  except  by  those 
who  adhere  without  reservation  to  the  plenary 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  as  the  direct 
work  of  God  and  the  permanent  incarnation  of 
his  Spirit.  They  alone  who  identify  the  di- 
vine revelation  with  the  letter  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  have  the  right  to  call  them- 
selves the  partisans  or  defenders  of  the  ca- 
nonical and  normative  authority  of  the  biblical 
books.  As  soon  as  one  concedes  to  human  ac- 
tivity any  part  whatever  in  the  composition  of 
the  Scriptures,  he  opens  the  door  to  error,  or  at 
least  to  chances  and  possibilities  of  error.  There 
1  That  is,  the  Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.  [TRANSLATOR.] 
*It  goes  without  saying  that  our  present  task  is  not  to 
examine,  in  all  its  entirety,  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
That  has  its  place  in  the  system  proper  of  dogmatics  ;  but  the 
dogmatist  cannot  avoid  taking  some  position,  at  the  outset,  with 
reference  to  the  problem  of  the  religious  and  dogmatic  authority 
of  the  Bible. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 1  7 

is  no  middle  ground  possible  here ;  negation  of 
verbal  inspiration  carries  with  it  negation  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  sacred  books. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  examine  the  doc- 
trine maintained  by  ancient  orthodoxy,  renewed 
and  vigorously  developed  by  Gaussen  and  the  men 
of  the  revival.  In  theory,  it  has  today  very  few 
adherents  among  thinking  theologians.  Its  un- 
soundness  and  peril  have  been  sufficiently  ex- 
posed. Profoundly  pious  spirits,  eminently  con- 
servative theologians,  have  traced  its  historical 
development,  and  its  cause  is  irretrievably  lost. 
It  is  recognized  that  it  corresponds  neither  to 
the  distinctive  character  and  inner  nature  of  the 
Bible  nor  to  the  testimony  which  the  sacred 
authors  render  concerning  themselves  ;  it  has 
been  shown  that  it  presupposes  and  involves  a 
superficial,  intellectualistic,  mechanical  concep- 
tion of  religion,  of  revelation,  of  the  activity  of 
God  in  the  history  of  humanity  and  in  the  souls 
of  believers ;  its  undeniable  dangers  have  been 
unveiled,  wherein  it  tends  to  make  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  simple  assent  and  to  substitute  the  hu- 
man record  of  divine  revelation  for  the  Word 
of  God  made  flesh  and  manifested  in  Jesus 
Christ.  But  if,  theoretically,  it  is  agreed  to  cast 
aside  this  notion  of  "dictation"  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  then  it  is  very  necessary  that  one  should 
have  the  courage  to  draw  the  practical  conclu- 


Il8  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

sions  from  the  premises.  How  many  theologians, 
how  many  pastors,  are  there  who,  in  their  teach- 
ing and  preaching,  appeal  to  Scripture  as  though 
the  Bible  were  a  doctrinal  formulary,  a  sacred 
code  or  ritual !  How  many  readers,  not  alone 
among  the  pious  laity,  search  in  their  Bibles  for 
an  infallible  external  guidance,  a  rule  which  they 
extract  from  texts  and  apply  to  life  or  to  their 
beliefs  as  a  judge  or  lawyer  consults  briefs  and 
handles  judicial  and  legislative  instruments ! 
How  many  Protestants  are  there  to  whom  the 
Bible  thus  becomes  what  the  church  is  to  the 
Catholic — avast  system  of  supernatural  guaran- 
ties, to  which  they  sometimes  "attach  them- 
selves by  a  bond  the  more  passionately  strong 
according  as  they  are  the  less  certain  about  the 
things  themselves!"1 

It  would  seem  that  the  difficulties  of  such  an 
enterprise  would  weary  those  who  brave  the  un- 
dertaking ;  for  finally,  in  order  to  consult  the 
Bible  as  one  turns  the  leaves  of  a  manual  of  ad- 
ministration or  a  body  of  laws  and  decrees,  the 
first  duty  would  be  to  have  recourse  to  the  origi- 
nal text  of  the  document  which  is  to  serve  as  a 
rule  and  oracle.  Now,  where  shall  we  find  that 
authentic  and  infallible  text  ?  Who  does  not 
know  that  the  manuscripts  that  have  come  to  us 
have  existed  relatively  but  a  short  time  ?  Can 

*L.  MONOD,  Questions  religieuses  du  jour,  p.  37. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 1 9 

one  forget  that  the  very  oldest  manuscript  of  the 
Old  Testament  did  not  exist  prior  to  the  tenth 
century,  and  that  the  most  valuable  manuscripts 
of  the  New  Testament  do  not  date  prior  to  the 
fourth  century?  Who,  moreover,  is  ignorant  that 
between  these  manuscripts  and  the  different 
groups  of  manuscripts  the  variations  are  reckoned 
by  thousands?  That  in  the  majority  of  these 
cases  the  divergences  may  be  void  of  dogmatic 
importance  is  of  no  concern ;  to  point  out  one 
divergence  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  claim 
of  an  infallible,  or  even  universally  received,  text 
is  a  piece  of  fiction  denied  by  the  facts.  More- 
over, even  if  such  a  text  did  exist,  it  would  be 
directly  accessible  to  only  a  few  Christians.  For 
the  great  majority  of  readers  the  Bible  exists 
only  in  more  or  less  exact  translations;  is  there 
a  single  one  of  these  that  can  be  declared  free 
from  the  possibility  of  error?  Do  not  the  mani- 
fold attempts  in  all  Protestant  countries  to  give 
an  ever  more  faithful  and  vivid  version  prove 
that  our  churches  do  not  think  of  attributing  in- 
fallibility to  any  one  of  the  translations  produced 
by  them?  Certainly  the  history  of  the  transla- 
tion of  the  Septuagint  or  of  that  of  the  Vulgate 
shows  that  the  Greek  or  Roman  Catholic  church 
is  not  very  happy  in  the  assertion  that  either  of 
these  versions  is  free  from  the  weaknesses  of 
human  work. 


120  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

A  simple  examination  of  the  facts  will  suffice 
to  reduce  to  an  absurdity  the  faith  in  an  infallible 
text;  the  notion  of  a  providential  and  divine 
canon  can  no  longer  resist  an  impartial  historical 
study. 

Who  made  the  New  Testament  ?  Who  has  gathered 
together  these  books  of  very  diverse  form  and  origin  ? 
Who  made  the  choice  between  those  elected  and  those  re- 
jected ?  Who  made  an  end  of  all  uncertainty  as  to  the 
canon  ?  The  history  of  the  fifth  century  answers  :  The 
ancient  Catholic  church ;  and  it  did  it  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  dogmatic  canon  of  the  New  Testament,  the  dog- 
ma of  dogmas  upon  which  some  advocates  would  rest  all 
other  dogmas,  itself  rests,  in  the  last  analysis,  merely 
upon  the  authority  of  the  church.  In  vain  do  they  object 
to  this  deposition  of  history.  Those  who  divinize  the  col- 
lection of  books  of  the  New  Testament  should  also  divinize 
the  tradition  of  a  church  which  they  maintain  in  other 
respects  is  contaminated  by  heathenish  errors  and  all 
manner  of  superstitions.  Such  is  the  vicious  circle  within 
which  the  theory  of  the  dogmatic  authority  of  the  Bible 
imprisons  and  destroys  itself,  in  so  far  as  it  would  rest  on 
external  and  historical  proofs.1 

We  are  aware  that  Catholicism  is  free  from 
this  criticism  and  avoids  this  contradiction,  but 
by  what  means  and  at  what  price  ?  By  the 
decree  of  the  divine  origin  and  infallible  char- 
acter of  the  ecclesiastical  tradition.  That  theory 
is  logical  and  consistent  on  condition  that  one 
goes  a  step  farther  and  postulates  with  Rome,  for 

1  SABATIER  :  "  Le  Nouveau  Testament  contient-il  des  dog- 
mes?"  Revue  chrllienne,  Vol.  I  (1892),  p.  29. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  121 

the  interpretation  of  Scripture  and  tradition,  a 
guide  absolutely  free  from  error,  an  infallible  and 
sovereign  supervision.  In  effect,  it  is  notorious 
that  infinitely  diverse  practices  and  teachings 
alike  appeal  to  the  authority  of  the  Bible  with 
imperturbable  confidence.  Parties  of  the  oppo- 
sition at  variance  with  the  church  in  the  Middle 
Ages  justified  their  apocalyptic  dreams  and  com- 
munistic endeavors  by  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  and 
even  in  our  day,  within  the  circle  of  Christianity, 
how  many  sects  are  there  which,  if  we  hold  to 
the  letter  of  the  Bible,  are  assuredly  more  faith- 
ful to  scriptural  teaching  than  are  the  most 
orthodox  members  of  our  churches  ? 

One  must  have  the  courage  to  declare  this 
without  any  evasion.  The  Bible  does  not  present 
itself  to  us  under  the  form  of  a  dogmatic  system 
let  down  from  heaven  and  bearing  the  seal  of  in- 
fallibility. To  transform  it  into  an  external  and 
legal  authority  which  rules  faith  and  dictates  be- 
lief is  to  impose  upon  it  a  character  which  is  for- 
eign to  it  and  which  it  has  never  claimed. 

To  deny  this  would  also  be  to  deny  the  clear- 
est and  most  decisive  teaching  of  history.  In  a 
word,  inadmissible  in  theory,  unrealizable  in 
practice,  the  rule  maintained  by  scriptural  scho- 
lasticism has  never  been  effectively  followed  or 
truly  practiced.  It  is  a  fact  that  our  Reformers 
developed,  by  preference,  the  leading  ideas  of 


1 2  2  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

the  Pauline  theology,  and  that  they  neglected  or 
sacrificed  the  elements  of  religious  testimony  in 
the  New  Testament  which,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
they  found  irreconcilable  with  the  gospel  of 
Paul.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Puritans  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  sought  the  rule  of  their  conduct 
and  the  type  of  their  language  in  the  historical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  a  fact  that 
some  of  the  most  vigorous  and  active  sects  of 
Protestantism  have  made  the  Apocalypse  the 
favored  object  of  their  meditations  and  the 
habitual  balm  for  their  souls. 

What  must  we  conclude?  That  the  most  reso- 
lute adherents  to  the  theory  of  verbal  inspira- 
tion cannot  and  never  have  put  a  like  value  on 
all  of  the  passages  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  they 
have  never  valued  indifferently,  as  to  religious 
and  moral  ideal,  Ecclesiastes  and  St.  John,  the 
book  of  Esther  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ; 
they  all  make  selections  out  of  the  number  and 
material  of  the  biblical  writings  ;  they  make  these 
their  points  of  departure  ;  they  assign  values  ac- 
cordingly, mark  preferences  ;  they  deny  in  fact 
and  by  their  own  example  the  rule  which  they 
formulate  in  theory.  And  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise, if  it  is  true  that  the  sacred  collection  con- 
tains books  of  unequal  religious  value  and  that 
in  the  New  Testament,  as  in  the  Old,  there  are 
diverse  types  of  teaching.  How,  then,  could  we 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 2  3 

reproach  theological  science  for  doing  what  pious 
believers  continually  and  unscrupulously  practice, 
by  virtue  of  a  religious  instinct  or  spiritual  tact 
which  breaks  into  pieces  the  doctrine  of  the  whole, 
as  applied  to  Holy  Scripture  in  matters  of  faith 
and  of  dogma  ? 

Is  this  an  immediate  declaration  that  if  the 
notion  of  verbal  inspiration  is  set  aside  the  Bible 
loses  all  religious  value  and  ceases  to  be  an  au- 
thority for  us  in  matters  of  faith?  By  no  means. 
It  is  not  the  authority  itself  which  falls  ;  the  na- 
ture of  the  authority  is  modified.1  After  show- 
ing what  Holy  Scripture  ought  not  to  be  and 
what  it  will  not  give  to  us,  it  is  easy  to  point  out 
the  necessary  and  permanent  role  which  pertains 
to  it  in  the  creation  and  the  direction  of  the  Prot- 
estant faith,  consequently  in  the  constitution  and 
government  of  dogmatic  science. 

44  The  Bible  is  the  witness  which  causes  us  to 
comprehend  the  Gospel."  The  Gospel — that  is  to 
say,  the  good  news  of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  the  earth,  the  revelation  "  of  the  divine 
holiness  and  love  in  their  perfect  harmony  mani- 
fested in  the  light  and  in  the  entire  activity  of 
that  One  from  whom  our  religion  derives  its  name, 
Jesus  Christ,"2 — the  Gospel  is  the  essential  coa- 

1  See  Chap.  II,  §  I.  The  difference  which  it  is  necessary  to 
bring  to  the  foreground  here  has  been  strongly  expressed  by 
Raccaud  :  "  We  are  the  children  of  the  Bible,  not  its  slaves." 

"L.  MONOD,  Le  Probttmc  de  /'  autoritt,  pp.  70,  101. 


124  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

tent  and  inspiring  soul  of  the  Holy  Scripture. 
The  value  of  the  latter  consists  in  that  it  is  the 
document  of  the  history  of  a  divine  work  which, 
continuing  through  the  centuries,  has  brought  to 
humanity,  "according  to  a  providential  plan,  es- 
pecially revealed  in  Israel," x  the  organs  of  a  new 
life  whose  perfect  development  and  supreme  mani- 
festation are  found  to  be  realized  in  Jesus  Christ. 
This  permanent  and  integral  source  of  the  Gospel 
furnishes  to  us  a  principle  of  spiritual  criticism, 
a  positive  religious  criterion,  according  to  which 
we  can  value  the  books  of  the  Holy  Scripture, 
and  discriminate,  in  each  writing,  between  the 
fundamental  and  essential  parts  and  the  decrepit 
and  transitory  parts.  "The  proclamation  of  the 
Word  of  God,  the  proclamation  of  the  Gospel  of 
redemption,  as  a  sovereign  authority,  puts  into 
our  hands  a  regulating  principle;  we  have  found 
the  focus  about  which  all  the  parts  group  them- 
selves with  a  value  proportionate  to  the  approach 
of  each  part  to  this  divine  center."2 

It  is  permissible  to  affirm  that  this  method 
conforms  to  the  very  spirit  of  Protestantism  and 
that  it  corresponds  to  the  great  religious  affirma- 
tions of  the  spiritual  followers  of  the  evangelical 
church.  Is  it  not,  in  a  word,  to  put  into  practice 
the  axiom  of  Luther,  who  made  the  canonicity  of 

•SABATIER,  Revue  chrdtienne,  Vol.  I  (1892),  pp.  35-8,  253. 

3L.  MONOD,  op.  cit.,  p.  1 08. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  125 

the  biblical  books  depend  upon  their  attitude  to 
the  person  of  Christ?  "This  is  the  true  test  for 
the  valuation  of  all  the  books ;  whether  they  in- 
sist or  not  upon  that  which  concerns  Christ,  since 
all  Scripture  must  point  us  to  Christ  (Rom., 
Chap.  3),  even  as  St.  Paul  (i  Cor.,  Chap.  2)  did 
not  wish  to  know  anything  except  Christ.  That 
which  does  not  teach  Christ  is  not  apostolic,  even 
if  Peter  or  Paul  has  said  it ;  on  the  contrary,  that 
which  preaches  Christ  is  apostolic,  even  if  it 
should  come  from  Judas,  from  Ananias,  from 
Herod,  or  from  Pilate."1  One  is  able  to  make 
certain  reservations  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
Luther  has  applied  this  principle,  but  it  seems  in- 
contestable to  us  that  Protestant  theology  will 
not  go  astray  by  returning  with  increasing  clear- 
ness and  decision  to  the  position  of  the  Reformer. 
What,  then,  is  this  postulate  so  vigorously  formu- 
lated by  theologians  of  very  diverse  tendencies, 
what  is  this  postulate  which  makes  Jesus  Christ 
the  foundation  of  the  authority  of  the  Scripture, 
if  it  is  not  a  manifest  return  to  the  religious  pro- 
gram of  Luther  ? 

This  is,  then,  the  element  of  truth  contained 
in  the  formula  of  our  ancient  theologians:  the 
Scripture  is  its  own  interpreter.  In  a  word,  the 
point  of  contact  and  the  norm  which  we  must 
choose  for  valuing  the  different  parts  of  the 

1  Vorrede  auf  die  Ep.  Jacobi. 


126  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Bible  we  shall  find  in  the  Bible  itself,  in  the 
living  center  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  in  the  person 
of  Christ  to  whom  the  sacred  books  render  testi- 
mony (John  5 :39). 

It  is  certain  that  this  method  of  valuing  and 
using  the  Bible  robs  it  of  the  judicial  and  legal 
authority  which  the  Jews  attribute  to  the  canon 
of  the  Old  Dispensation.  But  it  would  be  proof 
of  a  profound  lack  of  intelligence  or  a  mark  of 
bad  faith  to  maintain  that  the  Holy  Scripture, 
considered  as  the  document  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion of  which  Jesus  Christ  is  the  perfect  organ, 
loses  its  religious  virtue  and  is  deprived  of  the 
sovereign  dignity  which  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness confers  upon  it. 

We  have  indicated  wherein  resides  authority 
in  matters  of  faith  for  the  evangelical  Christian, 
hence,  in  what  consists  the  norm  of  Protestant 
dogmatics.  It  remains  to  us  to  deduce  clearly 
the  solution  implied  in  the  preceding  develop- 
ment, and  to  note  precisely  its  complete  meaning 
and  essential  characteristics. 
III. 

What  is  the  kernel  of  the  debate  as  to  the 
norm  of  Protestant  dogmatics  ?  It  is  the  ques- 
tion of  authority  in  matters  of  faith.  Is  there, 
for  the  Protestant,  a  religious  authority  ?  Where 
does  it  reside  ?  How  can  it  be  established  and 
be  made  legitimate  ? 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  \  2  7 

Whether  we  have  the  courage  to  admit  it,  or 
do  not  dare  to  acknowledge  it,  in  the  discussion 
of  this  problem  the  point  of  departure  is  our  own 
selves.  This  is  true  for  the  most  authoritative 
traditionalist,  for  the  most  submissive  Catholic. 
If  we  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter,  if  we  ana- 
lyze the  mental  and  moral  state  of  every  man 
who  obeys  an  authority,  there  is  at  the  very 
foundation  of  his  obedience,  back  of  his  accept- 
ance of  the  rule  to  which  he  submits  himself,  an 
inner  decision  of  the  subject,  a  voluntary  act  of 
the  individual.  If  I  am  a  Roman  Catholic,  it 
means  that  among  all  the  churches  I  accord  to 
the  church  of  Rome  the  exclusive  right  of  dic- 
tating her  laws  to  me.  Why  do  I  accord  to  her 
this  right  ?  It  does  not  suffice  for  me  to  answer : 
"Because  she  has  said  it."  For  one  would  de- 
mand immediately  how  and  why  that  word  has 
had  over  me  a  supremacy  which  has  conquered 
my  belief  and  bound  my  will.  It  follows  that 
subjectivism  is  the  necessary  point  of  departure 
and  the  permanent  condition  of  all  recognized 
and  accepted  authority. 

That  is  true,  in  a  narrower  and  higher  sense, 
upon  the  ground  where  we  place  Protestantism. 
If  inner  and  personal  faith  is  the  very  soul  of 
evangelical  Christianity,  it  is  easy  to  show  that 
a  new  conception  of  spiritual  authority  flows 
from  the  religious  principle  of  the  Reformation. 


128  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

That  which  characterizes  the  attitude  and  the 
principle  of  the  Protestant  is  that  the  believer 
does  not  submit  himself  by  virtue  of  a  power 
foreign  to  that  which  proposes  merely  to  con- 
strain him ;  that  the  religious  authority  which 
would  bend  his  will,  inspire  his  heart,  and  en- 
lighten his  spirit  needs  to  accredit  itself  and 
make  itself  legitimate  to  his  spirit,  to  his  heart, 
and  to  his  will;  that  it  shall  not  impose  itself 
upon  him  by  an  external  constraint,  but  shall 
recommend  itself  by  its  inner  virtue.  Far  from 
borrowing  its  rights  from  an  ally  external  to 
itself,  it  owes  its  efficacy  and  its  evidence  to 
itself  alone  —  what  shall  I  say? — it  is  an  au- 
thority which  itself  creates,  in  him  to  whom  it 
would  extend,  the  confidence  which  it  gives  to 
him ;  in  the  presence  of  a  superior  reality  which 
enters  into  his  life  his  spirit  feels  itself  solicited 
by  a  conquering  force  which  subjugates  and  domi- 
nates it.  To  recognize  authority  is,  for  us  Prot- 
estants, to  be  conscious  of  the  profound  affinity 
which  maintains  between  authority  and  our  con- 
sciousness; it  is  to  confess  that  the  authority  has 
a  right  to  bind  us  and  that  this  obligation  is  for 
us  at  the  same  time  freedom;  it  is  to  realize 
with  perfect  liberty,  which  is  at  the  same  time  an 
absolute  necessity,  that  to  resist  the  power  which 
would  claim  us  is  to  belie  our  own  nature. 

Does  there  exist,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Protestant 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  129 

Christian,  an  authority  of  this  species  ?  Is  there 
a  power  whose  spiritual  control  he  accepts  by  vir- 
tue of  an  assent  of  himself  to  himself?  Do  we 
know  a  power  in  the  presence  of  which  apparent 
abdication  proves  to  be,  in  reality,  conquest,  vic- 
tory, and  enrichment  ? 

To  these  questions  the  Protestant  can  answer 
only  by  the  affirmation  of  a  decisive  experience, 
constantly  renewing  itself,  ever  renewable. 

The  authority  which  acclaims  itself  to  our 
consciousness  and  claims  us,  that  which  finds  in 
us  the  most  intimate  contact  and  the  most  pro- 
found attachments,  that  which  truly  enters  into 
our  inner  life  and  mingles  itself  with  it  to  the  ex- 
tent of  making  itself  an  integral  and  organic  part 
of  us,  is  the  Gospel ;  that  is  to  say,  not  a  testi- 
mony leaning  upon  its  independent  phenomena 
and  invoking  for  its  credibility  an  external  vali- 
dation of  supernatural  proofs,  not  a  body  of  doc- 
trines accessible  to  theoretical  reason  by  way  of 
logical  demonstration  and  deduction,  but  the 
positive  and  practical  manifestation  of  a  new  life 
entirely  penetrated  by  holiness  and  love,  the  cer- 
tain realization  of  a  mercy  as  ardent  to  deliver 
the  guilty  as  it  is  implacable  in  condemning  the 
bad,  the  victorious  incarnation  of  the  power  of 
God  which  saves  the  sinner  (Rom.  1:16). 

This  power,  in  a  word,  this  Gospel,  which  never 
originates  in  the  heart  of  man,  but  which  the 


130  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

heart  of  man  needs,  the  conquered  and  convinced 
sinner  recognizes  as  the  Word  of  God,  the  in- 
spired message  of  deliverance  and  victory,  the 
redemptive  and  sanctifying  truth,  revealing  itself 
to  the  unfortunate  and  fallen  soul,  and  satisfying 
it  in  all  the  depths  and  exigencies  of  its  inde- 
structible needs.  If,  in  the  light  which  discovers 
to  him  the  depth  of  his  misery  and  the  infinite 
grace  of  a  Savior,  the  Christian  embraces  the 
"good  news"  as  the  "Word  of  God,"  it  is  not 
upon  the  basis  of  a  theory  elaborated  by  the 
savants,  nor  upon  faith  in  the  official  claims 
established  by  a  church ;  it  is  because  the 
power  whose  indisputable  reality  he  has  discov- 
ered raises  him  above  himself,  makes  him  con- 
queror of  the  world  and  of  sin,  and  causes  him  to 
enter  upon  a  life  of  holiness  and  love  which  has 
its  source  elsewhere  than  in  the  depths  of  the 
worldly  and  carnal  life. 

The  Word  of  God,  the  Gospel,  is  a  divine  reve- 
lation, or  rather  the  divine  revelation  par  excel- 
lence, not  an  abstract  doctrine  capable  of  enriching 
the  sum  of  our  intellectual  conceptions,  but  a 
creative  power  capable  of  freeing  and  renewing 
our  souls.  If  it  is  true  that  sin  is  something 
other  than  a  gap  or  an  aberration  in  the  intellect, 
if  it  is  more  than  a  deplorable  error,  if  it  over- 
whelms and  degrades  us  as  a  malevolent  power 
whose  servitude  we  cannot  break  and  whose 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 3 1 

shame  we  cannot  efface,  then  we  realize  that  we 
have  need,  not  only  of  being  enlightened  by  a 
light  from  above,  but  still  more,  and  above  all,  do 
we  need  to  be  pardoned,  healed,  transformed  by 
a  principle  of  eternal  life.  The  true  revelation  is 
a  resurrection  from  the  dead,  a  new  birth,  a  sec- 
ond creation  in  the  midst  of  humanity. 

"Gospel,"  "Word  of  God,"  "Revelation" — 
these  are  the  sublime  and  blessed  words  which, 
in  our  school,  have  been  necessarily  reduced  into 
formulas  and  dogmas,  but  of  which  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  constantly  to  regain  the  inexhaustible 
riches  and  divine  content,  the  demonstration  of 
spirit  and  of  power  which  does  not  suffice  for  our 
souls  unless  it  overreaches  them  ;  the  spiritual 
reality  which  we  comprehend  in  the  measure  in 
which  we  abandon  ourselves  to  its  control ;  the 
sovereign  law  which  the  consciousness  accepts  as 
a  "  law  of  liberty" — such  is  religious  authority 
in  the  evangelical  and  Protestant  sense. 

This  authority  has  a  name  in  history.  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  has  brought  to  us  the  Gospel  or  the 
Word  of  God;  he  has  not  announced  it  as  a 
message  independent  of  himself ;  he  did  not  teach 
it  as  a  doctrine  foreign  to  his  consciousness ;  he 
lived  it  in  his  life  ;  he  realized  it  in  his  person ; 
he  is  himself  its  perfect  revelation,  its  luminous 
and  all-powerful  manifestation.  "Master,  to 
whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of 


132  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

eternal  life,  and  we  have  believed  and  have 
known  that  them  art  the  Holy  One  of  God" 
(John  6:68,  69;  Matt.  16:16,  17).  That  spon- 
taneous cry  of  the  disciples'  faith  has  traversed 
the  centuries,  resounding  in  the  souls  of  all 
believers,  attracting  and  soothing  the  troubled 
and  overburdened  conscience,  awakening,  in 
hearts  thirsting  for  pardon  and  righteousness, 
profound  and  mysterious  echoes.  That  is  why 
Christ  can  dispense  with  official  titles  and  exter- 
nal warrants.  His  authority  rests  upon  a  certitude 
which  is  born  in  the  consciousness  itself  of  those 
who  give  themselves  to  him  ;  it  neither  com- 
mands nor  imposes  ;  it  inspires  ;  the  soul  adhering 
to  it  recognizes  its  true  self  and  discovers  its  true 
nature  and  its  immortal  and  divine  destiny. 

Can  one  say  that  this  method  of  conceiving 
authority  tends  to  weaken  or  deny  it  ?  That 
would  be  a  strange  mistake.  How  could  he 
suppress  authority  who  bases  it,  not  on  the  fra- 
gile ground  of  unreliable  proofs  or  upon  the  dis- 
putable titles  of  an  external  institution,  but  upon 
the  profound  and  elemental  foundation  of  con- 
sciousness, that  is  to  say,  upon  the  original  and 
indestructible  rock  of  humanity  ? 

Or  will  one  charge  us  with  that  oft-repeated 
reproach — "You  allow  subjectivism  to  enter; 
you  open  the  door  to  individual  and  arbitrary 
sense ;  your  pretended  authority  is  a  fiction,  it  is 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 3  3 

you  who  constitute  it,  you  yourselves  are  your 
own  authority"  ?  This  is  another  misunder- 
standing which  it  will  be  easy  to  set  aside,  if  we 
accept  seriously  the  privilege  which  the  Reforma- 
tion confers  upon  us  and  the  duty  which  it 
imposes  upon  us. 

In  effect,  the  faith  which  accepts  and  acknowl- 
edges religious  authority  is  not  the  implicit  faith 
of  the  Catholic  ;  it  is  faith  in  the  evangelical 
and  Protestant  meaning.  Is  it  necessary  to  recall 
that  this  faith  is  an  inner  and  personal  decision, 
an  affirmation  of  our  spiritual  and  moral  being, 
a  consent  of  the  subject  to  truth  ?  Is  it  neces- 
sary to  repeat  that  it  is  I  myself  who  am  called 
upon  to  believe  and  announce  my  belief  to 
myself  ;  that  I  cannot  throw  this  obligation  upon 
someone  else ;  that  upon  this  point  my  own 
responsibility  alone  is  engaged  ;  that  the  idea  of 
belief  by  proxy  is  a  contradiction  and  an  impossi- 
bility ? 

Is  this  the  subjectivism  with  which  we  are 
reproached?  If  it  is,  then  we  must  bear  the 
reproach ;  but  shall  we  lament  the  fact  ?  No,  we 
must  rejoice  and  be  glad,  for  that  subjectivism  is 
the  very  heart  of  the  Reformation  ;  this  so-called 
weakness  is  the  very  strength  of  Protestantism. 
To  dissimulate,  to  disguise,  to  gloss  over  this 
elementary  truth,  this  primordial  fact,  this  essen- 
tial condition  of  evangelical  Protestantism,  is  to 


134  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

dry  up  the  sources  of  our  religion  ;  it  is  to 
deny  the  principle  from  which  we  not  only 
derive  our  life,  but  the  very  reason  of  our  exist- 
ence. 

Moreover,  if  it  is  we  who  believe,  we  who  judge, 
we  who  express  ourselves,  is  that  to  say  that  the 
object  of  faith  is  of  no  importance  ?  Does  that 
mean  that  it  is  permitted  us  to  judge  haphazard, 
that  the  manner  in  which  we  express  ourselves 
may  be  indifferent  ?  God  forbid.  We  wish  to 
believe  the  truth,  we  wish  to  judge  according  to 
the  truth,  we  wish  to  declare  ourselves  for  the 
truth.  But  this  truth  is  of  a  practical  and  moral 
order,  and  there  is  a  second  point  which  must 
always  be  emphasized,  because  it  is  always  for- 
gotten. If  there  are  serious  and  earnest  Protes- 
tants who  have  any  difficulty  in  conceiving  the 
notion  and  the  role  of  religious  authority,  is  it 
not  because  they  have  so  much  difficulty  in  estab- 
lishing it  on  moral  and  practical  ground  ?  One 
insists  on  thinking  that  the  moral  certitude  is  less 
than  material  or  scientific  certitude  ;  one  con- 
fuses the  three  orders  of  greatness  so  admirably 
defined  and  distinguished  by  Pascal  ;  one  imagines 
that  an  authority  which  lays  claim  to  the  con- 
science only  could  not  be  an  absolute  authority  ; 
one  would  wish  to  establish  it,  if  not  by  material 
constraint,  at  least  theoretically  by  the  aid  of  the 
syllogism,  or  historically  by  the  aid  of  testimony. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  135 

Vain  efforts !    "  That  is  impossible,  for  it  [moral 
certitude]  is  of  another  order." 

This  truth  which  makes  believers  and  which 
is  accessible  only  to  believers,  the  fact  which 
gives  life  to  faith  and  which  is  comprehended  by 
faith,  that  is  precisely  the  Gospel,  the  Word  of 
God,  the  divine  revelation  in  the  person  and  work 
of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  not  my  personal  experi- 
ence which  makes  the  Gospel  and  which  creates 
authority  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  Gospel 
which,  rising  on  the  horizon  of  my  history,  enter- 
ing into  the  sphere  of  my  soul,  penetrating  to  the 
very  center  of  my  life,  determines,  by  its  influ- 
ence and  its  intrinsic  force,  an  inner  and  decisive 
crisis  by  virtue  of  which  I  decide,  believe,  obey 
love,  surrender.  Without  this  divine  Word 
which  has  awakened  my  soul,  I  should  con- 
tinue to  sleep  my  sleep,  troubled  perhaps  by 
prophetic  dreams,  but  a  sleep  always  overwhelm- 
ing and  at  last  fatal.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
true  the  Gospel  remains  for  me  a  closed  or  dead 
letter  if  I  do  not  assimilate  to  myself  its  divine 
content  by  a  voluntary  and  free  act,  solicited, 
made  possible,  realized  within  me  by  means  of 
that  same  Gospel  which  frees  me  while  it  enslaves 
me,  and  which  guarantees  my  independence  while 
creating  my  submission. 

We  are  here  at  the  mysterious  center  of  the 
work,  at  once  divine  and  human,  which  appeals 


136  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

to  faith.  It  is  not  exact  to  say  that  outside  of 
this  experience  the  Gospel  does  not  exist,  but  it 
is  necessary  to  affirm  that  for  him  who  has  not 
had  this  experience  the  Gospel  vanishes  and 
remains  incomprehensible.  Our  experience  does 
not  make  truth,  but  it  does  make  it  our  own ; 
it  does  not  produce  religious  authority,  but  it 
does  give  to  it  its  hold  upon  our  consciousness 
and  submits  our  inner  life  to  it. 

If  I  have  succeeded  in  making  myself  under- 
stood, I  cannot  be  accused  of  resolving  the  reali- 
ties of  the  Gospel  into  subjective  phenomena  and 
of  defining  religious  authority  fancifully.  That 
which  saves  us  from  this  error  is  knowledge  of 
*»evangelical  and  Protestant  faith  ;  if  that  frees  us 
from  the  servitude  of  a  statutory  and  legal 
authority,  it  also  cures  us  of  a  self-conceit  which 
nourishes  itself  upon  its  own  substance. 

Faith  is  awakened  in  us  by  the  divine  factor 
of  the  Gospel,  but,  in  order  to  live,  sustain,  and 
strengthen  itself,  it  must  invariably  lean  upon  the 
power  which  has  produced  it.  Subject  to  constant 
failures,  assailed  by  doubt  and  sin,  exposed  to 
ironical  and  cruel  contradictions,  which  the  expe- 
rience of  each  day  opposes  to  it,  what  would 
become  of  our  faith  if  it  reposed  upon  itself 
alone  ?  In  order  to  affirm,  in  spite  of  all  these 
obstacles  and  contradictions,  the  incorruptible 
holiness  and  infinite  love  of  the  heavenly  Father, 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 3  7 

it  appeals  to  the  divine  token  of  that  love  and 
that  holiness ;  it  assures  itself  by  the  evangelical 
revelation  which  makes  it  possible  to  hope  against 
hope ;  it  draws  from  the  work  and  .person  of 
Christ  the  motives  of  a  trust  which  places  the 
world  beneath  its  feet  (i  John  5  :  4) ;  it  maintains 
itself  and  nourishes  itself  by  the  religious  testi- 
mony which  comes  to  the  aid  of  our  weakness 
and  triumphs  over  our  incredulity.  Without  the 
gracious  initiative  of  the  divine  love  revealed 
and  made  certain  by  the  Savior,  faith  could  not 
be  born ;  without  the  continued  operation  of 
that  love,  which  is  assured  to  us  by  that  One 
who  is  the  same  yesterday,  today,  forever,  faith 
could  not  subsist  and  grow.  The  Gospel  is  not 
only  the  original  agent  of  our  spiritual  life,  it  is 
also  its  permanent  foundation ;  Jesus  Christ  is  in 
every  way  the  beginner  and  the  finisher  of  faith. 
May  we,  then,  be  saved  from  the  refined 
spiritualism  which  invites  us  to  free  ourselves 
progressively  from  that  One  who  would  be  only 
its  great  initiator,  whose  part,  once  completed, 
would  become  superfluous !  Away  with  those 
who  rally  around  the  famous  dictum  of  philoso- 
phy, maintaining  that  the  work  of  Christ  has 
become  useless,  and  who  would  be  happy  to  see 
his  name  forgotten  and  lost  in  the  glory  of  the 
Father! x  We  repudiate  this  assertion,  which  could 

'FiCHTE,  Anweisung  zum  seligen  Lebcn  (Vol.  V,   p.  485, 
complete  works.) 


138  AN  INTRO D UCTION  TO 

only  be  a  dangerous  illusion  or  a  fatal  misunder- 
standing. Do  they  wish  by  such  advice  to  invite 
us  to  sacrifice  the  entire  official  and  external 
title  in  favor  of  the  divine  mission  of  the  Savior? 
Do  they  not  expect  us  to  remember  that  the 
word  of  Christ  finds  a  direct  point  of  contact  in 
our  hearts,  and  that  his  authority  is  firmly  imbed- 
ded in  our  consciousness  ?  Nothing  is  more 
true,  more  evangelical,  or  more  Christian.  Do 
they  pretend,  on  the  contrary,  that  we  shall  come 
to  dispense  with  Christ  according  as  we  shall  be 
more  advanced  in  the  inner  and  spiritual  experi- 
ence of  Christianity?  Nothing  is  more  false, 
more  chimerical,  or  more  perilous.  In  a  word, 
what  is  spiritual  and  inner  Christianity  if  it  is 
not  filial  confidence  in  the  all-powerful  and  per- 
fectly holy  love  of  the  heavenly  Father  ?  Re- 
move the  proof  and  the  token  of  that  love,  what 
will  become  of  our  confidence  ?  A  frail  reed  which 
a  vapor,  a  drop  of  water,  can  destroy,  and  the  uni- 
verse will  conspire  to  crush  it.  Down,  then, 
with  the  terms  of  your  specious  reasoning! 
Instead  of  repeating,  "The  more  spiritually  ele- 
vated we  become,  the  more  shall  we  approach 
freedom  from  the  tutelage  of  the  Master,"  affirm 
with  joyous  and  grateful  assurance:  "The  more 
we  advance  in  faith  and  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth,  the  more  shall  we  enter  into  communion 
with  Him  who  is  for  us  the  truth  and  who  ere- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  139 

ates  and  increases  our  faith  ;  the  more  shall  we 
make  his  work  the  foundation  of  our  confidence 
and  his  word  the  balm  of  our  life."  No,  the 
Holy  Spirit,  living  within  the  souls  of  believers, 
does  not  separate  them  from  Christ;  it  renders 
testimony  to  him  ;  it  glorifies  him ;  it  causes  him 
to  reign  and  increase ;  it  stamps  indelibly  upon 
their  consciousness  the  divine  right  of  his  abiding 
authority.1  Break  the  bond  which  binds  the 
Christian  to  Christ  and  to  his  Gospel,  and  you 
tear  the  truth  from  his  soul  by  the  roots ;  you 
break  the  unity  of  his  moral  life ;  you  mutilate 
his  consciousness. 

I  have  tried  to  define  the  religious  authority 
implied  in  the  Protestant  and  evangelical  notion 
of  faith.  In  what  does  that  authority  consist  ? 
What  is  its  foundation  ?  These  are  vital  ques- 
tions, not  to  be  dissociated  from  another  problem 
which  is  their  necessary  correlative :  Upon  what 
foundation  do  our  faith  and  Christian  certitude 
rest? 

If  the  solution  which  I  have  attempted  to  set 
forth  and  defend  corresponds  to  the  truth,  then 
each  evangelical  Christian  should  be  in  a  position 
to  test  it  and  verify  its  correctness  by  his  own 
personal  experience.  The  facts  analyzed  are  not 
of  an  exceptional  character;  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  the  common  inheritance  of  every  believ- 

1  John  16 : 13-15  ;  15  :  26,  27;  Rom.  8 :  16,  26,  27. 


I  40  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

ing  and  earnest  Protestant ;  they  constitute  the 
inner  and  permanent  source  of  his  religious  life. 
The  Word  of  God  revealing  its  divine  origin  in  the 
effects  which  it  produces  in  the  hearts  of  believers; 
the  Gospel  legitimizing  itself  to  the  consciousness 
which  recognizes  in  it  the  supreme  good  toward 
which  it  aspires  and  for  which  it  is  created;  Jesus 
Christ  accepted  and  followed  by  the  soul  whose 
confidence  he  wins  and  eternally  justifies — is  not 
this  the  central  kernel  of  Protestantism?  Is  not 
this  the  inspiring  soul  of  evangelical  faith  and  the 
Christian  life? 

The  condition  of  the  Protestant  theologian  is 
not  different  from  that  of  believers;  an  evangeli- 
cal Christian,  he  has  not  fared  otherwise  than  his 
brothers  ;  there  is  for  him  no  other  Christian 
authority  than  for  each  of  the  members  of  the 
church;  he  does  not  know,  he  cannot  know,  any 
different  way  of  arriving  at  the  certitude  of  faith 
or  of  establishing  the  character  and  rights  of  the 
Gospel. 

What,  then,  is  his  mission  and  his  role  ?  His 
duty  is  limited  to  a  translation  of  the  testimony 
and  the  content  of  the  faith  which  he  shares  with 
his  brothers.  His  mission  consists  in  making 
himself  the  faithful  and  consistent  interpreter  of 
the  experiences  of  which  the  Gospel  is  the  author 
and  the  object.  If  my  efforts  in  this  regard  are 
not  without  fruit,  it  will  be  understood  that  the 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  141 

religious  authority  of  evangelical  faith  constitutes 
at  the  same  time  the  norm  of  Protestant  dog- 
matics. Dogmatic  science  in  the  Protestant 
church  has  no  other  rule  than  the  Gospel  or  the 
Word  of  God  revealed  and  realizedby  Jesus  Christ. 

However,  this  answer,  proof  of  which  I  have 
tried  to  furnish,  raises  new  questions.  Dogmatics 
is  a  science ;  the  Gospel  has  neither  the  preten- 
sion nor  the  marks  of  a  science.  Dogmatics 
aspires  to  establish  a  system  ;  nothing  is  less  sys- 
tematic than  the  Christian  revelation.  Dogmatics 
tries  to  translate  into  formulas  the  affirmations  of 
the  Christian  consciousness ;  Jesus  has  neither 
prescribed  formulas  nor  promulgated  dogmas. 
Is  there  not,  then,  an  absolute  incompatibility 
and  irreducible  contradiction  between  dogmatic 
science  and  the  norm  that  we  have  just  estab- 
lished ?  How  shall  we  draw  from  the  evangeli- 
cal revelation,  announced  by  Christ  and  incar- 
nated in  his  person,  a  rule  governing  the 
constitution  of  the  science  of  faith  ?  How  shall 
we  apply  the  norm  of  faith  to  the  elaboration  of 
dogmatics  ?T 

To  ask  these  questions  is  to  announce  a  new 
problem  which  we  must  proceed  to  examine,  the 
problem  of  the  method  of  Protestant  dogmatics. 

1 A  great  number  of  theologians,  of  most  opposed  points  of 
view  and  most  diverse  schools,  seem  to  agree  upon  this  point : 
the  religious  authority  of  Jesus  Christ. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  METHOD  OF  PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS. 

I.  Elimination  of  methods  incompatible  with  the  religious 
principle  of  Protestant  dogmatics, —  (l ).  The  method  of  authority. — 
Catholicism  and  Protestant  orthodoxy. —  Results  of  abandoning 
the  doctrine  of  verbal  inspiration. —  The  organic  method  substi- 
tuted for  the  atomistic  method  in  the  dogmatic  use  of  the  Scrip- 
ture.—  The  necessity  of  separating  the  constitutive  elements  of 
the  Christian  faith  and  the  secondary  explanations  of  theological 
reflection. —  (2).  The  speculative  method.—  In  what  sense  has  specu- 
lation a  legitimate  part  in  dogmatics?  —  A  priori  speculation 
and  rational  deduction. —  Condemnation  of  this  method  :  it  does 
not  recognize  the  subjective  and  practical  character  of  religious 
knowledge ;  it  does  not  take  account  of  the  facts  of  evangeli- 
cal revelation  and  of  the  experiences  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness ;  it  does  not  take  into  account  the  existence  and  the  interest 
of  the  church  ;  it  is  in  contradiction  to  the  religious  principle  of 
Protestantism  and  the  tradition  inaugurated  by  our  Reformers. 

II.  Attempt  at  a  positive  solution, —  Statement  of  the  question: 
How  shall  we  deduce  the  evangelical  revelation,  the  material  and 
norm  of  Protestant  dogmatics,  from  the  biblical  books,  the  docu- 
ments of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  ?  —  Nature  and  limits  of  the  evan- 
gelical revelation  :  It  pertains  only  to  the  concrete  relations  of 
the  moral  and  religious  life. —  Corollaries  of  this  principle:  the 
source  of  religious  experience  and  the  form  of  dogmatic  explana- 
tion.—  Application  of  this  distinction  to  the  theology  of  the  New 
Testament :  examples  borrowed  from  the  doctrine  of  the  person 
and  work  of  Jesus  Christ.— Characteristics  and  value  of  the 
dogmatic  proof  drawn  from  the  Holy  Scripture. —  Meaning  and 
extent  of  the  experimental  method  in  dogmatics. 

III.  The  sciences  auxiliary  to  Protestant  dogmatics  and  its  place 
in  the  circle  of  theological  disciplines. — Program  of  this  discussion  : 
we  must  start  out  from  incontestable  facts  in  order  to  examine  the 
142 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  143 

points  at  issue.—  The  Protestant  dogmatician  needs  the  help  and 
the  support  of  biblical  theology  and  of  historical  theology  (his- 
tory of  dogma,  symbolism,  history  of  theology). —  Protestant  dog- 
matics and  practical  theology. —  The  problem  of  the  relationship 
of  dogmatics  to  ethics. —  The  problem  of  the  relationship  of  dog- 
matics to  philosophy  :  autonomy  of  the  Reformer  with  regard  to 
the  latter;  meaning  of  this  formula. —  The  indifference  of  the 
Protestant  dogmatician  to  forbidden  and  impossible  philosophical 
material. —  Impossibility  of  constructing  a  theological  system 
without  basing  it  upon  the  foundation  of  a  theory  of  knowledge ; 
presuppositions  and  demands  of  such  a  theory. —  The  importance 
of  the  philosophy  of  Kant  for  the  Protestant  theologian  ;  nature 
and  limits  of  this  importance. —  Protestant  dogmatics  and  the 
philosophy  of  religion. —  Protestant  dogmatics  and  Christian 
apologetics  ;  conditions  and  limitations  of  apologetics. —  Apolo- 
getic character  of  Protestant  dogmatics. —  Transition  to  the  last 
chapter  of  this  work  :  The  organism  of  Protestant  dogmatics. 

I. 

WE  will  not  stop  long  to  combat  the  meth- 
ods irreconcilable  with  our  premises  and  to  justify 
in  detail  the  motives  of  such  an  exclusion.  A 
few  observations  will  suffice. 

i.  The  method  of  authority  practiced  by 
Catholic  scholasticism  or  Protestant  orthodoxy 
has  but  a  few  rigorously  consistent  defenders 
among  the  theologians  who  are  the  partisans  of 
the  Reformation.  Catholic  theology,  receiving 
the  truth  from  the  hands  of  an  infallible  church, 
could  have  no  other  mission  than  to  demonstrate 
these  traditional  dogmas,  in  so  far  as  is  possible, 
and  laboriously  to  reduce  them  into  a  system  in 
which  artificial  logic  takes  the  place  of  living 


144  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

unity.  In  breaking  with  the  notion  of  an  infalli- 
ble church,  Protestant  theology  has  deprived 
itself  of  the  right  and  the  means  of  proceeding 
after  the  fashion  of  the  doctors  of  the  Roman 
church.  The  confessions  of  faith  of  evangelical 
communities  neither  pretend  nor  are  able  to  es- 
tablish a  theological  tradition  having  the  force  of 
law  in  the  Protestant  church.  The  method  of 
authority,  conceived  in  the  sense  which  Roman 
theology  attaches  to  it,  is  radically  incompatible 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  faith  and  of 
Protestant  dogmatics. 

Repulsed  from  the  ground  of  official  creeds 
and  judicial  obligations,  the  method  of  authority 
presents  itself  to  us  in  another  aspect  in  the 
churches  born  of  the  Revival.  It  took  refuge 
behind  the  intrenchments  of  the  biblical  canon, 
and  it  renewed  its  life  and  its  power  under  the 
form  of  verbal  and  external  inspiration.  I  have 
already  indicated  the  reasons  why  this  point  of 
view  appears  inadmissible.1  Hence  it  would  be 
useless  to  return  to  it,  if  we  were  not  daily  wit- 
nesses of  that  contradiction  which,  on  this  point, 
exists  in  many  spirits  and  creates  disorder  in  the 
camp  of  Protestant  theology. 

There  are  very  few  theologians  who,  in  theory, 
dare  to  support  the  doctrine  of  the  literal  inspi- 
ration of  the  Scripture ;  on  the  contrary,  some 

•Chap.V.ga, 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  145 

attain  a  certain  affectation  in  proclaiming  loudly 
that  they  have  victoriously  broken  away  from  the 
mechanical  and  magical  conception  of  verbal  in- 
spiration, and  they  complacently  do  themselves 
honor  for  this  act  of  courageous  independence. 
If,  however,  it  comes  to  drawing  resolutely  the 
results  of  these  premises,  immediately  they  re- 
cede, hesitate,  compromise,  finally  return  to  the 
old  rut,  and  remain  bound  by  the  tradition  which 
they  had  repudiated  with  so  much  noise  and 
secular  activity. 

They  always  act,  in  sermons,  in  catechetical  teaching, 
and  even  in  theological  teaching,  as  if  they  still  held  the 
Bible  as  an  infallible  code,  and  they  continue  to  prac- 
tice the  method  of  authority  although  the  principle  of  this 
external  authority  has  long  since  foundered.  There  is  a 
contradiction  and  a  fatal  incoherence  in  our  Protestant 
evangelical  dogmatics.  There  is  no  possible  development 
of  the  position  of  thq  evangelical  theologian  who  incorpo- 
rates in  dogmatics  the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration  which 
he  himself  has  very  frequently  destroyed  utterly  by  his 
criticism  or  his  exegesis.1 

In  opposition  to  these  inconsistencies  and 
contradictions,  it  is  necessary  to  repeat  that  the 
desertion  of  verbal  inspiration  involves  a  com- 
plete modification  of  the  nature  of  dogmatic 
proof  drawn  from  the  Scriptures.  The  Bible 
ceases  to  be  for  us  a  collection  of  loci  classici  cal- 

'SABATIER,  Annales  de  bibliographic  thfologique,  1889, 
p.  146. 


1 46  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

culated  to  prop  up  the  doctrinal  decisions  of  the 
church ;  the  Christian  character  of  a  dogma  is  not 
founded  upon  the  testimony  of  a  word  torn  from 
its  context.  One  would  deceive  himself  very 
strangely  if  he  imagined  that  an  enumeration  of 
scriptural  passages,  or  a  very  imposing  accumula- 
tion of  dicta  probantia,  would  suffice  to  constitute 
an  evangelical  and  Protestant  dogma.  As  to  par- 
ticular passages,  it  would  be  necessary  first  to  de- 
termine their  precise  origin ;  their  exact  and  com- 
plete meaning ;  their  general  import  in  the  whole 
teaching  of  their  authors.  Nay,  if  verbal  inspira- 
tion is  to  be  rejected,  if  it  mingles  human  ele- 
ments with  the  divine  factors  which  have 
controlled  the  formation  of  biblical  ideas,  it  is 
necessary  to  find  out  whether  these  notions  form 
an  integral  part  of  the  Christian  revelation  or  are 
only  a  secondary  product  of  the  thought  of  the 
sacred  authors.  Moreover,  one  cannot  free  him- 
self from  the  task,  as  difficult  as  it  is  necessary, 
of  choosing  between  the  permanent  foundation  of 
Christian  truth  and  the  transient  and  variable 
forms  of  theological  explanation.  In  other 
words,  for  the  atomistic  method  which  heaps  up, 
pellmell,  isolated  quotations,  it  is  necessary  to 
substitute  the  organic  method  which  reproduces 
the  historical  meaning  and  comprehends  the  liv- 
ing and  inner  inspiration  of  the  sacred  docu- 
ments. One  is  singularly  mistaken  if  he  imagines 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  147 

that  he  is  rendering  homage  to  the  authority  and 
the  dignity  of  the  Scriptures  when  he  does  away 
with  the  generative  idea  and  the  organic  integ- 
rity of  biblical  development.  In  disjointing  the 
chain  of  theoretical  demonstration,  or  in  break- 
ing up  the  thread  of  practical  exhortation  in  or- 
der to  attach  himself  separately  to  each  of  the 
elements  obtained  by  this  rash  dissolution,  one 
not  only  warps  the  general  meaning  of  the  text ; 
he  also  disfigures  the  precise  meaning  of  each  of 
its  parts.  The  childish  naivete  with  which  one 
sometimes  flatters  himself  for  establishing  the 
biblical  validity  of  a  doctrine  by  means  of  a  frag- 
mentary quotation  of  the  Bible  is  one  of  the  most 
fatal  heritages  of  ancient  orthodoxy  and  of  the 
theory  of  the  mechanical  inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, which  our  Protestantism  has  had  so  much 
trouble  to  get  rid  of,  to  the  great  detriment  of 
both  faith  and  science. 

If  the  dogmatician  is  authorized  to  make  use 
of  only  the  essential  and  constitutive  ideas  of  the 
Christian  revelation,  if  he  does  not  allow  himself 
to  attach  the  same  dogmatic  value  to  the  imme- 
diate affirmations  of  faith  and  to  the  explana- 
tions derived  from  theology,  how  shall  he  make 
his  choice  between  the  two  ?  Our  former  re- 
searches have  already  prepared  the  answer  to 
that  question ;  nor  can  it  be  more  than  merely  in- 
dicated here.  We  shall  return  to  it  later  in  the 


148  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

attempt  to  furnish  a  positive  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  dogmatic  method.  It  is  sufficient,  for 
the  moment,  to  discard  the  method  of  authority, 
under  the  double  form  with  which  Catholic  the- 
ology and  Protestant  orthodoxy  have  stamped  it. 
"Authority,"  Scherer  has  said,  "is  like  the  thread 
which  holds  together  all  the  beads  of  a  rosary. 
When  the  thread  is  broken  the  beads  no  longer 
have  a  bond,  they  fall  to  the  ground ;  in  vain 
will  you  search  to  regain  them ;  you  must  make 
the  best  of  it,  you  will  never  find  them  all 
again."1  You  will  find  them,  we  dare  to  say,  by 
slightly  modifying  the  figure  of  the  eminent 
critic ;  you  will  find  them,  but  renewed  and  trans- 
formed, still  capable  of  rendering,  under  this 
form,  services  valuable  beyond  expectation. 

2.  At  the  antipodes  of  the  method  of  authori- 
ty there  is  another  method  which  we  must  dis- 
card not  the  less  resolutely  :  it  is  the  speculative 
method.  While  eliminating  it  without  hesitation 
and  declaring  it  incapable  of  performing  the  task 
imposed  upon  Protestant  dogmatics,  it  is  well  to 
prevent  all  misunderstanding;  it  is  necessary  to 
avoid,  above  all,  any  equivocation  which  might 
run  the  risk  of  warping,  from  the  very  beginning, 
our  point  of  view  and  entangling  the  question 
instead  of  elucidating  it. 

*Mllanges  d'histoirereligieuse,  2d  ed.  (Paris,  1865),  Introd. 
p.iv. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 49 

Is  it  understood  that  the  speculative  method 
is  the  mere  antithesis  of  empiricism?  In  that 
sense,  it  is  very  evident  that  it  constitutes  a  large 
part  of  dogmatic  science.  Empiricism  reduces 
all  knowledge  to  the  comprehension  of  the  par- 
ticular fact  which  falls  directly  under  the  obser- 
vation of  the  intellect  or  under  the  perception  of 
the  sense  organs.  If  the  particular  and  contin- 
gent fact  alone  can  be  affirmed,  if  it  alone  is  real 
and  demonstrable,  every  science  resolves  itself 
into  a  collection  of  particular  experiences  which 
it  will  be  possible  to  unite  as  a  whole,  but  which 
cannot  have  between  themselves  any  organic 
bond,  because  general  and  universal  laws  do  not 
exist.  In  other  words,  empiricism  is  equivalent 
to  the  negation  of  all  science.  If  empiricism  were 
right,  the  experimental  sciences  would  be  as 
impossible  as  other  sciences. 

Without  doubt,  the  real,  actual  facts  are,  above  all, 
that  by  which  we  are  able  to  perceive  everything  that  is 
accessible  to  our  minds;  perception  of  the  facts,  that  is, 
experience,  is  the  point  of  departure  for  every  science. 
Within  these  limits,  empiricism  is  right.  But  to  wish  to  limit 
itself  to  this  point  of  departure,  to  imprison  the  human 
spirit  within  this  small  circle,  is  folly  and  absurdity;  it  is  to 
deny  gratuitously  the  legitimacy  of  all  our  intellectual 
operations  which  stand  upon  the  facts  in  order  to  over- 
reach them  and  discover  general  and  universal  truths;  it  is 
to  deny  the  value,  the  validity,  and  the  sphere  of  reason.1 

1  RIAUX,  "Empirisme,"  in  FRANCK'S  Dictionnairt  ties  sciences 
philosophiques,  2d  ed.  (Paris,  1875),  P-  443- 


150  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Now,  this  sphere  of  reason,  this  function  of  the 
intelligence  which  overreaches  the  particular  and 
contingent  fact,  which  raises  itself  from  the  acci- 
dental to  the  necessary,  has  frequently  been 
designated  by  the  general  name  of  speculation ; 
that  is  to  say,  speculation,  taken  in  this  very 
large  sense,  has  a  part  in  the  formation  of  all 
sciences,  experimental  as  well  as  rational.  Ex- 
perience gives  the  particular,  speculation  seeks 
and  discovers  in  it  the  general,  and  it  is  this  dis- 
covery which  raises  the  data  of  experience  to  the 
level  of  a  science.  Induction,  which  is  the  pas- 
sage from  the  particular  to  the  general,  is  there- 
fore the  first  step  in  speculative  reason.  Thus  no 
science  could  establish  and  complete  itself  with- 
out speculation.  In  order  to  merit  the  name, 
science  must  fill  the  sphere  which  belongs  to  it ; 
it  must  have  an  independent  method  which  will 
free  it  from  all  external  authority,  an  organizing 
principle  which  brings  into  unity  the  facts  and 
particular  notions,  and  gives  to  them  the  coher- 
ence of  a  system.  Research  for  causes,  for  laws, 
for  the  generative  principle,  belongs  to  specula- 
tion. 

If  this  is  true,  it  is  clear  that  Protestant  dog- 
matics could  not  dispense  with  speculation. 
Dogmatics  has  for  its  source  faith,  the  product 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  for 
its  norm  the  Gospel,  of  which  the  New  Testament 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 5 1 

is  the  classical  document.  But  investigation  of 
the  relations  which  maintain  between  the  con- 
stitutive elements  of  the  Christian  faith,  the 
determination  of  the  laws  which  these  relations 
imply,  the  synthesis  which  arises  to  a  view  of  the 
whole,  are  the  tasks  which  overreach  the  limited 
circle  of  observation  and  experience,  and  they  could 
not  be  resolved  into  purely  empirical  functions. 
Defined  in  these  terms,  the  speculative  method 
is  not  only  legitimate;  it  is  indispensable  to  the 
normal  activity  of  dogmatic  science. 

However,  that  is  not  the  ordinary  signification 
which,  in  the  history  of  theology,  attaches  to 
speculation  and  to  the  speculative  method.  That 
term  is  generally  reserved  for  the  undertaking  of 
philosophers  or  theologians,  who,  instead  of  tak- 
ing their  point  of  departure  from  the  facts,  pro- 
ceed a  priori  without  taking  account  of  observa- 
tion and  experience.  That  a  priori  deductive 
process,  descending  from  the  absolute  and  uni- 
versal to  the  relative  and  particular,  is  the  more 
chimerical  and  dangerous  the  more  resolutely  it 
insists  upon  challenging  the  supreme  jurisdiction 
of  the  facts. 

Even  admitting  that  one  had  the  happy  faculty  of 
positing  for  his  point  of  departure  a  large  and  fruitful 
truth,  that  would  not  save  it  from  being  hypothetical  in 
character,  since  it  would  not  rest  upon  reality;  as  a  last 
result,  he  who  would  accept  it  must  resign  himself  to  eter- 


152  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

nal  ignorance  of  its  demonstration,  hence  must  deprive  his 
concepts  of  the  very  character  which  constitutes  science, 
certitude.1 

Without  doubt,  it  may  happen  that  speculative 
reason,  like  genius,  may  divine  by  immediate 
intuition  what  experience  discovers  only  step  by 
step;  but  still  it  is  necessary  that  these  oracles 
thus  given — precisely  because  they  are  imme- 
diate and  after  a  fashion  straight  from  heaven  — 
should  be  sanctioned  by  a  work  of  experimental 
verification,  and,  if  need  be,  by  rectifying  critique, 
in  order  to  have  the  force  of  law  in  the  realm  of 
science. 

Condemnable  in  philosophy,  the  speculative 
method  thus  conceived  is  still  more  inadmissible 
to  the  ground  of  dogmatic  science. 

Its  first  error  consists  in  not  recognizing  the 
subjective  and  practical  character  of  religious 
knowledge.  The  speculative  method  tends  to 
make  of  this  knowledge  a  theoretical,  objective 
function,  independent  of  the  inner  decisions  and 
disposition  of  the  subject ;  it  suppresses  or  ignores 
the  real  nature  of  faith,  an  eminently  personal 
and  moral  act ;  it  does  not  know  how  to  distin- 
guish clearly  between  the  religious  certitude 
which  is  imbedded  in  consciousness  and  the 
scientific  certitude  which  has  intellectual  evidence 
for  its  foundation ;  it  forgets  that  "  God  is  not  a 
1  RIAUX,  op.  tit. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  \  5  3 

phenomenon  which  one  may  observe  outside  of 
himself,  nor  a  truth  demonstrable  by  purely  logi- 
cal reasoning;"1  it  tries  to  resolve  Christianity 
into  a  science  of  the  absolute,  a  revealed  meta- 
physic  according  to  some,  a  natural  metaphysic 
according  to  others  ;  it  compromises  immediately 
the  autonomy  of  faith  and  of  the  Christian  life, 
and  finishes  up  by  destroying  it. 

At  the  same  time  it  causes  Christian  theology 
to  deviate  from  the  line  which  Christ  himself 
traced  for  the  faith  of  his  disciples.  In  effect,  if  it 
is  true  that  faith  comes  from  preaching  and  that 
preaching  has  for  its  content  the  Gospel,  that  is 
to  say,  the  positive  work  and  living  personality 
of  the  Savior,  it  should  be  recognized  that  the 
speculative  method  which  proceeds  a  priori  is  the 
precise  opposite  of  faith,  since  it  does  away  with 
the  facts  and  experiences  of  the  Christian  revela- 
tion. The  method  which  we  oppose  presupposes 
and  implies  with  more  or  less  clearness  and  con- 
sistency that  Christianity  is  essentially  an  idea ; 
it  imposes  upon  theology  the  task  of  separating 
this  idea  from  the  sensible  envelope  and  popular 
symbols  which  clothe  it.  It  may  be  recalled  how 
Hegelianism  has  conceived  and  practiced  this 
method.  That  which  religion  teaches  under  the 

1  SABATIER,  "  Essai  d'une  th^orie  critique  de  la  connaissance 
religieuse,"  Revue  de  thlologie  et  dc  philosophie,  1893,  p.  215  ;  Revue 
chrftienne,  Vol.  II  (1893),  v&4> 


154  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

concrete  form  of  dogma  or  of  cult,  philosophy 
translates  into  pure  ideas,  and  thus  raises  it  into 
a  superior  realm  more  conformable  to  the  inner 
nature  of  spirit.  Starting  from  these  premises, 
the  Hegelian  Right  pretended  to  preserve  the 
biblical  teaching,  even  to  recognized  ecclesias- 
tical doctrines,  but  interpreting  them  in  their 
philosophical  and  profound  meaning ;  it  thought 
it  had  found  in  metaphysics  the  keystone  of  the 
mysteries  of  Christianity  and  thus  had  reconciled 
forever  the  Gospel  and  the  modern  spirit.  We 
know  with  what  pitiless  irony  Strauss  unveiled 
the  fictitious  character  and  deplorable  sterility  of 
that  attempt  at  the  restoration  of  orthodoxy  by 
means  of  speculation ;  from  the  Hegelian  prin- 
ciples he  drew  diametrically  opposite  conclu- 
sions ;  that  which,  according  to  him,  remains  of 
each  dogma  after  its  progressive  formation  and 
its  fatal  dissolution  through  the  centuries  is  a 
pale  residue,  an  abstract  idea,  the  integral  ele- 
ment of  a  system  of  speculative  pantheism.  The 
enfants  terribles  of  the  Hegelian  Left  sought  to 
destroy  the  illusion  of  that  golden  age,  which  was 
to  see  consummated  the  indissoluble  union  of 
philosophy  and  Christianity  and  "inaugurate  a 
new  era  during  which  the  wolves  would  live  with 
the  lambs  and  the  leopards  with  the  ewes."1 

'STRAUSS,  Die  christliche  glaubenslehre,  etc.  (1840-41),  Vol. 
II.  p.  I. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  155 

If  the  leaders  of  the  speculative  method  do 
not  take  account  of  the  subjective  and  practical 
character  of  the  religious  consciousness,  if  they 
forget  that  Christianity  is  a  spiritual  reality  which 
has  manifested  itself  in  history  and  has  been 
incarnated  in  a  Person,  they  commit  yet  another 
error  of  a  piece  with  the  foregoing ;  they  aban- 
don the  ground  of  the  Christian  community  and 
do  not  do  justice  to  the  interests  and  most  im- 
perious exigencies  of  the  church.  They  come 
dangerously  near  to  establishing  a  false  and  fatal 
hierarchy  between  the  faith  of  the  simple  be- 
liever and  the  speculative  reflection  of  the 
thinker.  The  former  is  only  a  provisional  stage 
on  the  route  which  leads  to  perfecj;  truth ;  it  is 
only  a  lower  round  of  the  ladder  which  mounts 
to  the  Absolute.  That  is  the  old  distinction 
which  the  Gnostics  borrowed  from  ancient  phi- 
losophy or  from  pagan  religions,  and  which  the 
Christianity  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul  has  justly  de- 
stroyed by  opening  the  Kingdom  of  God,  not  to 
the  proud  wisdom  of  the  learned,  but  to  the  sim- 
plicity of  heart  and  happy  confidence  of  children. 
Thus  it  is  necessary  to  reject  absolutely  every 
theological  method  and  system  which  tends  to 
obscure  these  fundamental  truths  and  which 
raises  the  false  and  dangerous  fiction  of  an  eso- 
teric doctrine  for  the  use  of  the  initiated  and  an 
exoteric  doctrine  good  only  for  the  common 


156  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

people.  Nothing  is  more  contrary  to  the  essence 
of  the  Gospel  and  to  the  religious  principle  of 
primitive  Protestantism. 

In  a  word,  the  method  accepted  by  the  specu- 
lative schools,  orthodox  or  heretical,  is  in  flagrant 
contradiction  to  the  tradition  followed  by  our 
Reformers.  Doubtless,  not  one  of  the  latter 
elaborated  a  theory  of  knowledge  or  developed 
ex  professo  the  principles  of  a  dogmatic  method- 
ology; but,  in  default  of  a  program,  they  left 
us  their  example,  and  it  is  above  all  by  their 
example  that  they  condemn  rational  speculation 
applied  to  the  Christian  faith.  From  their  con- 
stant practice  it  is  possible  to  deduce  the  clear 
and  fruitful  indications  of  the  course  followed  in 
their  treatment  of  dogmatic  problems.  Let  it 
suffice  to  recall,  by  way  of  example,  the  declara- 
tions of  Luther  as  to  the  knowledge  of  God  and 
Jesus  Christ,  and  also  his  sarcastic  and  undignified 
polemic  against  the  rational  deductions  of  the 
scholastics  of  the  Middle  Ages.  How  it  scorns 
and  opposes  the  adventurous  attempts  of  the 
modern  sophists  who  carry  on  their  rash  investi- 
gations upon  "God  in  himself,"  upon  the  eternal 
essence  of  the  Son  prior  to  his  manifestation  in 
the  flesh,  and  upon  the  unfathomable  mysteries 
of  the  divine  Trinity!  The  proud  curiosity  of 
these  imprudent  people  who  disdain  the  way 
traced  by  God  himself  is  not  less  condemnable 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  \  5  7 

than  the  folly  of  the  architect  who  imagined  that 
he  could  construct  the  roof  of  his  building  before 
he  had  laid  the  foundation.  Like  the  angel  of 
light  who  was  involved  in  irreparable  ruin  by  his 
insane  and  culpable  presumption,  these  unhappy 
ones,  led  astray  by  the  meanderings  of  specula- 
tive dreams,  expose  themselves  to  terrible  calami- 
ties and  rush  fatally  to  their  ruin.  In  the 
warnings  which  Luther  addressed  to  those  whom 
he  would  hold  back  from  the  precipice  the  most 
bitter  irony  is  mingled  with  the  most  solemn 
adjurations,  but  the  dominating  emphasis,  the 
fundamental  note,  of  all  these  words  has  in  it 
something  of  tragedy,  a  remnant  of  which  still 
vibrates  in  the  intellectual  and  moral  temptations 
whose  fatal  and  unconquerable  encroachment  the 
Reformer  himself  felt. 

I  will  gather  up  and  try  to  indicate  precisely 
our  conclusions  as  to  the  speculative  method  as 
applied  to  Protestant  dogmatics.  That  method 
we  accept  and  wish  to  practice,  if  by  it  is  meant 
what  we  stated  at  the  beginning  of  our  critical 
exposition,  that  is  to  say,  if  we  attempt  merely 
to  comprehend  the  Protestant  doctrine  in  its 
inner  origin  and  in  its  living  unity,  to  consider 
each  of  the  Christian  truths  in  the  light  of  a  gen- 
erative and  controlling  principle,  or  rather  of  a 
primordial  and  final  fact,  the  Gospel  of  salvation, 
incarnated  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  be- 


1 58  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

coming,  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  immanent  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  believer.  But  we  condemn 
and  reject  the  speculative  method,  if  by  it  is 
meant  the  purely  formal  method  of  Spinozistic 
or  Hegelian  a-priorisnt,  rational  deduction,  or 
idealistic  metaphysics  which  identifies  the  cate- 
gories of  being  with  the  laws  of  thought  and 
transforms  into  objective  and  creative  realities 
the  subjective  concepts  or  the  logical  operations 
of  the  intellect.  Such  a  method  denies  the  essen- 
tial conditions  of  religious  knowledge,  and  hence 
of  dogmatic  science  ;  it  is  contrary  to  the  most 
manifest  intentions  and  to  the  supreme  aim  of 
the  Christian  revelation  ;  it  is  unfaithful  to  the 
program  which  the  vital  principle  of  the  Protes- 
tant church  and  the  inspiring  spirit  of  the  the- 
ology of  our  Reformers  imply  and  demand. 

The  authoritative  and  speculative  methods 
have  sometimes  been  combined  with  or  have 
yielded  to  truths  which  it  is  not  necessary  to 
mention  here.  They  fall  before  either  one  of  our 
critical  tests,  and  sometimes  before  both. 
II. 

We  have  discarded  the  methods  incompati- 
ble with  the  religious  principle  of  evangelical 
Protestantism.  We  must  now  determine  in  a 
positive  manner  the  method  which  the  task  of 
Protestant  dogmatics,  properly  understood,  im- 
plies and  demands. 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 59 

How  shall  we  be  able  to  obtain  from  the 
biblical  documents  the  Gospel  or  the  Word  of 
God  revealed  and  realized  in  Jesus  Christ  and 
laying  hold  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  be- 
liever? 

The  answer  to  this  question  would  not  seem 
difficult  to  anyone  who  knows  how  to  draw  reso- 
lutely the  conclusions  involved  in  the  Christian 
and  Protestant  notion  of  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ. 

We  have  stated  above,1  and  it  is  necessary  to 
repeat  here,  that  this  revelation  is  not  an  abstract 
idea;  it  is  the  manifestation  of  a  creative  and  re- 
demptive power,  a  decisive  virtue  which,  from 
the  consciousness  of  Jesus,  where  it  reigns  in  all 
its  fulness,  has  spread  everywhere  into  the  hearts 
opened  to  the  benign  influence  which  emanates 
from  that  mysterious  force.  The  good  seed, 
thrown  into  well-prepared  ground,  has  become  a 
vigorous  tree,  sheltering  all  those  who  seek  refuge 
under  its  branches.  Thus  the  content  of  this 
revelation  does  not  consist  in  a  system  of  super- 
natural notions  and  inspired  doctrines  ;  the  living 
center,  the  luminous  focus,  of  the  Gospel  is  the 
inner  and  immediate  sense  of  divine  sonship, 
which  is  the  inspired  essence  of  the  self-con- 
sciousness of  Jesus,  the  primitive  and  indestructi- 
ble experience  of  his  spiritual  life,  the  immovable 

'Chap.  V,§III. 


160  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

and  permanent  principle  of  his  religious  testi- 
mony and  his  messianic  ministry.  That  experi- 
ence, prepared  in  history  by  the  progressive 
education  to  which  God  submitted  humanity, 
appeared  among  the  people  of  Israel  in  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  "  in  the  fulness  of  time,"  and  was  propa- 
gated in  the  consciousness  of  the  apostles,  who 
were  its  first  witnesses  and  faithful  interpreters. 
The  succeeding  generations  have  been,  with  re- 
gard to  the  great  creative  and  redemptive  facts  of 
the  historical  appearance  of  Jesus,  in  a  relation- 
ship of  dependence  which  is  not  limited  to  the 
external  bond  of  remembrance  or  of  tradition. 
Life  produces  life,  and  it  is  only  when  this  spirit 
which  constituted  the  very  personality  of  Christ 
comes  to  its  unfolding  in  the  heart  of  man  that 
there  is  born  the  new  creature  called  "the 
Christian." 

This  living,  spiritual,  eminently  religious  and 
evangelical  conception  of  revelation  tends  to 
gather  about  it  an  ever-increasing  number  of 
spirits,  and  it  is  permissible  to  affirm  that  in  the 
end  it  will  prevail.  It  has  been  expressed  by 
one  of  the  masters  of  contemporary  theology, 
with  admirable  vigor  and  clearness,  in  a  page 
which  the  reader  will  be  grateful  to  me  for  quot- 
ing: 

The  capital  point,  where  the  activity  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  is  truly  necessary,  is  that  we  shall  undergo  a  new 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 6 1 

experience,  that  there  shall  be  created  in  us  the  beginning 
of  a  life.  We  are  dead  in  our  trespasses  and  sins.  No  one 
can  help  us  by  giving  us  an  abstract  idea  in  addition,  but 
rather  by  reviving  us.  Modify  first  my  inner  life,  my  con- 
crete relationship  to  God,  I  myself  will  then  take  care  to 
modify  accordingly  my  theology.  From  this  point  of  view 
one  will  comprehend  immediately  that  the  veritable  Word 
of  God  is  not  a  catalogue  of  dogmas,  that  is  to  say,  of 
superhuman  abstract  truth  ;  for  that  would  reduce  this 
Word  to  a  simple  flatus  -vocis  or  to  a  simple  -ypd/t/xa,  to  a 
dead  and  vain  letter.  The  Word  of  God  is  essentially 
creative:  It  said,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  and  there  was 
light.  That  is  to  say  that  it  makes  real  what  it  proclaims, 
and  it  proclaims  in  realizing.  That  is  true  of  the  physical 
creation  ;  it  is  just  as  true  of  the  moral  creation.  Since, 
in  fact,  religious  truth  is  nothing  without  the  religious  life, 
God  never  gives  one  without  causing  the  other  to  appear. 
Thus,  wishing  to  save  us,  he  did  not  stop  with  a  dogmatic 
definition  of  the  normal  relationship  between  ourselves  and 
him.  He  has  done  more  and  better  ;  He  has  created  and 
has  caused  to  be  born,  in  the  midst  of  humanity,  Jesus,  the 
Son  of  Man  and  the  Son  of  God,  and  has  placed  that  con- 
sciousness of  the  Son  of  God  in  history  and  in  humanity  as 
a  germ,  as  a  power  of  life  capable  of  bringing  forth  life 
like  itself.  Likewise,  wishing  to  enlighten  Israel,  God 
raised  up  among  that  people  a  series  of  prophetic  conscious- 
nesses, in  such  a  manner  that  it  is  in  the  appearance  of 
these  luminous  and  shining  souls,  and  not  elsewhere,  that 
one  must  search  for  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Thus  the  absolute  revelation  of  God  is  the  absolute 
consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ  in  which  there  is  perfectly 
realized,  under  the  form  of  a  concrete  life,  the  normal  rela- 
tionship between  man  and  the  heavenly  Father  who  is 
manifested  to  him.  We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  posi- 


1 62  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

tive  essence  of  revelation  is  not  in  any  kind  of  dogma,  but 
in  the  creation  and  production  of  a  perfect  religious  life  in 
the  midst  of  humanity.1 

If  the  New  Testament  constitutes  the  docu- 
ment of  revelation,  if  it  translates  its  testimony 
and  relates  its  history,  the  course  to  be  followed 
in  order  to  find  in  the  Gospel  the  substance  of 
Christian  and  Protestant  dogma  should  not  be 
doubtful.  The  historical  method  is  the  only  one 
which  answers  to  the  real  nature  of  the  problem 
for  which  we  are  trying  to  find  a  solution. 

Some  observations  upon  the  application  of 
this  method  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

It  is  very  evident  that  the  divine  revelation 
centers  in  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  and  that 
it  pertains  only  to  the  concrete  relationships  of 
the  moral  and  religious  life.  That  is  to  say  that 
at  one  stroke  is  eliminated  a  series  of  questions 
which  too  often  have  been  incorporated  in  the 
scientific  expression  of  the  Christian  faith  and 
have  been  introduced  as  integral  elements  into 
the  traditional  dogma.  All  the  world  today 
agrees  that  the  Bible  does  not  pretend  in  any 
manner  to  teach  us  lessons  of  cosmography,  of 
geology,  or  of  natural  history  ;  but  we  forget  this 
very  fundamental  principle  as  soon  as  it  is  neces- 
sary to  put  it  into  practice  and  translate  it  into 

'SABATIER,  "Le  Nouveau  Testament  contient-il  des  dog- 
mes?"  Revue  chrdtienne,  Vol.  I  (1892),  pp.  36,  37. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  163 

statements  of  fact.  How  many  times,  in  formu- 
lating the  ideas  of  creation,  of  providence,  of  the 
supernatural,  in  drawing  the  picture  of  the  future 
destinies  of  humanity,  in  elaborating  our  cos- 
mology and  eschatology,  have  we  effaced  or 
ignored  the  line  of  demarkation  which  we  had 
so  conscientiously  drawn  !  We  indulge  in  excur- 
sions into  domains  from  which  we  had  excluded 
ourselves;  v/e  congratulate  ourselves  on  the 
secret  harmonies  which  we  hope  to  find  between 
the  laws  of  the  spirit  and  the  laws  of  nature ! 

Is  it  necessary  to  give  some  precise  examples  ? 
Someone  has  affirmed  that  the  only  important 
thing  in  the  biblical  account  of  creation  is  the 
great  religious  fact,  but  has  none  the  less  pointed 
out  with  complaisance  "the  striking  facts  which 
show  us  how  the  discoveries  of  science  have 
come  to  throw  unexpected  light  upon  certain 
obscure  passages  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis."1 

Someone  teaches  that  miracle  is  a  religious 
notion  accessible  to  faith  alone,  and  upon  which 
scientific  experimentation  has  no  hold  ;  but,  in 
spite  of  this  affirmation,  he  seeks  to  determine 
theoretically  the  conditions  of  the  birth  of  Jesus 
or  the  nature  of  the  body  of  the  resurrected  and 
glorified  Savior.  One  concedes  voluntarily  that 
in  matters  of  medical  science  Jesus  did  not  pos- 
sess any  supernatural  knowledge,  and  yet  does  not 

1  BONIFAS,  Revue  thlologiquc  de  Montauban,  1874-75,  p.  238. 


1 64  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

blink  at  drawing  a  whole  system  of  demonology 
from  some  of  the  scriptural  accounts  concerning 
the  cure  of  an  epileptic  or  a  maniac.  Nothing  is 
more  frequent  than  the  inconsistencies  which 
misapprehend  the  exclusively  religious  character 
of  the  evangelical  revelation  and  which  tend  to 
confound  disastrously  the  practical  knowledge  of 
the  believing  subject  and  the  theoretical  function 
of  science. 

It  is  equally  necessary  to  class  in  the  "domain 
of  human  fallibility,"  and,  consequently,  take 
from  the  religious  jurisdiction  of  the  Gospel,  the 
literary  and  critical  opinions  of  Jesus  relative  to 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  and,  in  general, 
all  that  belongs  to  the  domain  of  the  history 
made  sacred  by  the  national  tradition  of  the 
Israelites.  It  does  not  suffice,  then,  to  assure  us 
that  we  are  not  obliged  to  believe,  with  Jesus  and 
like  him,  in  the  Mosaic  authenticity  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, in  the  Davidic  origin  of  the  noth  psalm, 
in  the  complete  historicity  of  the  book  of  Daniel ; 
it  is  necessary  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  this  affirma- 
tion. If  the  religious  authority  of  Jesus  is  limited 
to  the  spiritual  experiences  which  he  would  com- 
municate to  the  consciousness  of  his  followers,  it 
would  be  to  displace  and  to  abuse  the  authority  of 
the  name  of  Christ  to  collect.out  of  the  declarations 
of  the  Master,  the  dicta  probantia  as  proof  of  some 
particular  theory  of  revelation  and  inspiration. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  165 

Jesus  had  neither  the  pretension  nor  the  mission 
of  explaining  to  us  the  mode  of  the  origin  of  the 
sacred  books ;  of  giving  to  us  an  account  of  the 
species  of  influence  exercised  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
on  the  spirit  of  man;  of  uniting  the  religious 
truths  which  he  affirms  with  the  hypotheses  set 
forth  on  the  subject  of  these  truths.  Has  criti- 
cism succeeded  in  really  establishing  the  mythi- 
cal character  of  the  fall  or  of  the  traditions 
relative  to  the  patriarchs  ?  We  shall  be  charged 
with  challenging  the  results  of  science  by  stating 
that  Jesus,  like  the  apostle  Paul,  like  the  ancient 
church,  believed  in  the  historical  reality  of  the 
traditional  figures  of  Adam  and  Eve,  of  Abraham 
and  Isaac,  of  Jacob  and  his  sons. 

Is  this  all  that  should  be  said  with  reference 
to  the  words  of  Jesus  and  the  sacred  writers  ? 
No.  The  limit  within  which  the  Gospel  is  con- 
tained, the  living  and  permanent  material  of 
Christian  and  Protestant  dogma,  should  be  more 
precisely  defined  and  more  closely  considered. 
The  work  of  concentration  to  which  the  dogmatic 
canon,  as  we  have  tried  to  establish  it  above, 
invites  us,  implies  still  other  principles  and  new 
corollaries  which  flow  logically  from  our  prem- 
ises. It  is  not  possible  nor  permissible  to  declare 
that  the  conceptions  and  formulas  which  the 
Master  and  his  disciples  borrowed  from  their 
contemporaries  as  the  vehicles  of  the  fruitful 


1 66  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

germ  of  the  divine  truth,  the  creative  and 
redemptive  power  of  the  Gospel,  are  eternal  and 
unchangeable.  The  sense  of  divine  sbnship 
affirmed  and  expressed  itself  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  Christ  under  the  form  of  Hebrew  and 
Jewish  messianism,  which  served,  not  as  the  acci- 
dental and  casual  envelope,  but  as  the  necessary 
vehicle  for  the  religious  thought  of  Jesus.  If  it 
is  certain  that  we  cannot  historically  separate 
the  messianic  kingdom  from  the  person  of  its 
founder,  must  we  then  conclude  that  for  the 
Christian  of  today  the  title  and  the  idea  of  the 
Messiah,  the  theocratic  functions  which  he 
assumed,  the  apocalyptic  hopes  which  attached 
to  his  work,  have  an  absolute  and  eternal  value  ? 
Is  there  not  every  evidence  that  the  Christian 
faith  instinctively  sloughs  off  the  temporary  and 
local  husks  in  order  to  possess  and  nourish  itself 
upon  the  religious  substance  which  they  contain  ? 
It  pierces  through  the  outer  envelope  to  the 
kernel  within.  In  proceeding  thus  it  merely  obeys 
the  impulse  which  comes  from  Christ  himself. 
The  foundation  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  consists, 
in  the  last  analysis,  in  the  sense  of  divine  sonship  which 
constituted  th,e  power  and  the  joy  of  his  spirit  from  the 
very  first.  That  was  not  for  him  a  dogma  ;  it  was  a  moral 
experience  of  his  life.  It  is  this  feeling  which  at  once 
takes  him  above  the  law  and  makes  him  announce  a  new 
covenant  of  God  with  men.  It  is  this  feeling  which  spiritu- 
alizes and  transforms  naturally  the  idea  of  the  messianic 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 6  7 

kingdom  and  of  the  Messiah  himself,  and  which  has  become 
the  specific  character  of  the  new  religion.  But  here,  also, 
Jesus  separated  himself  in  appearance  from  the  rest  of 
humanity  only  in  order  to  raise  it  to  himself.  He  not  only 
called  God  "my  Father,"  but  "our  Father,"  "your 
Father  ; "  upon  this  recognition  of  God  as  Father,  upon 
the  new  sense  of  this  divine  sonship,  he  built  all  the  new 
life  of  his  disciples.  He  did  better  and  more  than  to  formu- 
late a  theory  ;  by  his  word  and  by  communion  with  his 
person  he  created  in  their  souls  this  new  feeling  ;  he  gives 
to  others  that  which  he  fully  possesses  in  himself.  In  this 
manner  the  profoundest  point  in  his  inner  life  becomes  the 
summit  of  his  revelation  ;  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  Gospel 
which  has  changed  the  world.1 

That  which  we  have  called  the  religious  ex- 
perience of  Jesus  is  applied  in  a  large  measure 
also  to  the  faith  of  his  apostles  and  first  disciples. 
"  In  the  authentic  discourses  of  Jesus,  the  creative 
and  revealing  principle  appears  united  to  the 
most  elementary  and  consequently  the  most 
durable  ideas."*  This  is  not  equally  so  in  the 
different  doctrinal  types  of  the  "  theology  of  the 
New  Testament  ;"  with  the  primitive  language  of 
the  religious  consciousness  there  is  always  min- 
gled the  secondary  expression  of  dogmatic  re- 
flection. Sometimes  the  new  faith  takes  the  form 
of  popular  or  rabbinical  hermeneutics  in  order  to 
justify  its  religious  affirmations,  and  uses  to  this 

•SABATIER,  "Jdsus  Christ"  in  L '  Encydopldie  des  sciences 
religieuses,  Vol.  VII  (Paris,  1890),  p.  395. 

•SABATIER,  De  la  vie  intime  des  dogmes,  p.  13. 


1 68  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

end  exegetical  arguments  which  may  seem  deci- 
sive and  true  at  the  time,  but  which,  for  us,  are 
deprived  of  all  approved  forcefulness.  Some- 
times the  Christian  consciousness  took  the  form 
of  the  speculative  formulas  which  were  current 
in  the  schools  and  translated  its  inner  experiences 
into  language  acceptable  to  Hellenic  genius. 
Jews  and  Greeks  borrowed  from  the  patrimony 
of  their  intellectual  culture  and  their  theological 
tradition  auxiliary  theses  and  explanatory  corol- 
laries in  order  to  expound  and  develop  the  con- 
tent of  their  Christian  faith.  It  is  therefore  a 
complete  misunderstanding  of  the  religious  mean- 
ing and  real  import  of  the  faith  itself  to  identify 
the  foundation  of  religious  experience  with  the 
form  of  theological  argumentation.  It  is  no  more 
legitimate  to  raise  the  metaphysical  formulas  scat- 
tered through  the  New  Testament  to  the  height 
of  dogmatic  principles  than  it  is  to  canonize  the 
exegesis  of  the  apostles — an  exegesis  as  interest- 
ing from  the  religious  point  of  view  as  it  is  arbi- 
trary from  the  point  of  view  of  the  historian. 
There  is  a  striking  analogy  between  the  process 
of  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  by  exegesis  and 
the  process  of  metaphysical  justification  by  specu- 
lation. It  is  manifestly  inconsistent  to  dispose 
flippantly  of  the  hermeneutics  of  Paul,  of  Mat- 
thew, or  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  but  re- 
tain at  any  price  the  speculative  formulas  of  the 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 69 

fourth  gospel.  The  Alexandrian  Gnosis,  as  well 
as  the  rabbinical  exegesis  or  popular  hermeneu- 
tics,  is  only  an  external  support  which  the  Chris- 
tian faith  seized  upon.  In  either  case,  the  expe- 
rience affirmed  by  faith  is  not  of  the  same  species 
as  the  explanation  furnished  by  theology. 

There  are  innumerable  examples  to  support 
these  assertions  ;  we  will  indicate  only  a  few  bor- 
rowed purposely  from  the  central  dogma  of 
Christianity,  the  doctrine  of  the  person  and  of 
the  work  of  Jesus  Christ. 

At  first  view,  the  Christian  and  Protestant 
idea  of  redemption  is  conditioned  by  the  expla- 
nation of  the  theocratic  sacrifices  and  propitia- 
tory rites  of  the  Old  Covenant.  He  who  holds 
to  the  letter  of  the  scriptural  documents  will  al- 
ways be  tempted  —  let  us  say  more,  he  will  al- 
ways be  obliged  —  to  search  in  Leviticus  for  the 
key  to  the  understanding  of  the  death  of  the  Sav- 
ior.x  Did  not  the  apostles  themselves  find,  in  the 
religious  usages  and  traditions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  prophetic  types  of  the  redemptive  and 
expiatory  work  of  Christ?  It  is  undeniable  that 
their  examples  should  have  the  force  of  law  for 
us  if  we  are  not  allowed  to  distinguish  between 
their  religious  faith  and  their  scriptural  argumen- 
tation and  typology.  Nowhere  would  this  dis- 

'This  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  old  orthodoxy  and  of 
the  theology  of  the  Awakening. 


170  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

tinction  between  the  essential  value  of  their 
religious  affirmations  and  the  relative  and  secon- 
dary character  of  their  theological  explanations 
appear  more  necessary  and  more  evident.  In  a 
word,  all  of  our  sacred  writers  agree  upon  one 
chief  point,  that  "there  is  in  the  death  of  Christ 
something  essential  which  is  not  found  in  that  of 
the  oxen  and  goats  sacrificed  upon  the  altar  of 
Jahveh.  This  something  is  the  voluntary  offering 
of  the  victim  Himself ;  it  is  not  devoted,  it  de- 
votes itself  freely  and  lovingly  (Rom.  5:6-9). 
His  sacrifice  becomes,  on  that  account,  a  moral 
act." x  All  analogy,  therefore,  between  the  Leviti- 
cal  expiation  and  the  Christian  redemption  re- 
mains necessarily  imperfect,  and  there  is  not  one 
of  the  authors  of  the  New  Testament  who  does 
not  recognize  this  with  more  or  less  clearness 
and  consistency.  Hence,  the  dogmatic  value 
of  their  scriptural  argumentation  and  typology 
has  nothing  absolute  and  general  in  it,  but  is 
purely  relative  and  secondary.  The  docile  and 
pious  children  of  the  Old  Covenant,  brought  up 
under  the  religious  beliefs  of  their  people,  affec- 
tionately attached  to  the  theocratic  tradition, 
naturally  expressed  or  justified  their  new  faith 
by  the  help  of  the  images  or  formulas  which  had 
made  up  their  past.  That  which  these  multiple 

1  SABATIER,  Dorigine  du  ptcht  dans  le  systtme  thlologique 
de  Paul   (Paris,  1887),  pp.  25,  26. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 7  I 

rites  and  manifold  sacrifices  of  the  Mosaic  cult 
only  imperfectly  offered  to  the  heart  thirsting 
for  peace  and  righteousness  they  found  in  the 
work  of  their  Savior  ;  the  Crucified  appeared  to 
them  as  the  Supreme  Mediator,  the  perfect  vic- 
tim, the  unique  sacrifice.  Enriched  by  this  un- 
speakable gift,  in  possession  of  this  treasure  which 
surpassed  all  their  needs  and  which  assured  to 
them  a  blessedness  beyond  their  fondest  dreams, 
they  took  pleasure  in  searching  for  and  pointing 
out,  even  in  the  smallest  details,  a  profound  har- 
mony between  the  new  economy  and  that  which 
Christ  had  abolished  to  accomplish  it.  Symbol- 
ism and  typology  became  the  auxiliaries  of  dog- 
ma. But  the  primitive  and  permanent  inspira- 
tion of  their  prophetic  or  allegorical  exegesis 
proceeded  from  their  Christian  faith  ;  the  com- 
parisons and  the  figures  which  they  drew  from 
the  Old  Testament  were,  in  the  last  analysis,  only 
the  popular  illustration  or  the  commentary,  more 
practical  than  theoretical,  of  their  new  religion. 
We  must  avoid,  therefore,  attributing  a  norma- 
tive character  to  the  apostolic  exegesis,  or  con- 
founding the  object  of  their  Christian  labors 
with  the  methods  of  their  scriptural  or  dogmatic 
reasoning. 

It  would  be  easy  to  pursue  this  work  and 
show  the  application  of  these  principles  to  the 
entire  christology  of  the  New  Testament.  What 


172  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

is  the  idea  of  the  pre-existence  of  the  Son  of 
God  if  it  is  not  the  translation,  into  the  language 
of  the  time,  of  the  religious  valuation  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Christ,  the  organ  eternally  predes- 
tined by  the  divine  will  to  be  the  perfect  revealer 
of  an  inviolable  holiness  and  of  an  infinite  love, 
the  founder  of  the  Kingdom  which  the  Father 
has  prepared  for  his  chosen  ones  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world  (Matt.  25  :  34)?  What  is 
the  conception  of  the  miraculous  birth  of  Jesus 
if  it  is  not  the  popular  and  symbolic  expression 
of  a  truth  of  the  Christian  experience,  of  the  as- 
surance that  the  divine  light  incarnated  in  Christ 
and  communicated  by  him  to  humanity  pro- 
ceeded from  a  divine  source;  that  it  did  not 
spring  from  our  base  and  sinful  worldly  life ; 
that  the  Son  of  God  is  truly  a  new  creation,  the 
Head  of  a  humanity  which  "has  in  heaven  its 
source,"  the  second  Adam  born  of  God  and  liv- 
ing in  God  ?  What  is  faith  in  the  resurrection  if 
it  is  not  the  victorious  and  immovable  assurance 
that  the  Lord  is  living ;  that  the  death  of 
the  Crucified  was  not  the  last  word  of  his 
mission  of  salvation,  but  rather  the  inaugura- 
tion and  indispensable  condition  of  an  imperish- 
able work ;  that  the  spirit  of  holiness,  the 
essential  factor  of  the  earthly  personality  of 
Jesus,  reached  its  perfect  maturity  in  the  glori- 
fied Lord,  so  that  his  activity  is  not  bounded  by 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 7  3 

the  conditions  of  space  and  time,  and  that 
henceforth  the  Lord  is  nearer  to  his  own  than 
during  the  days  of  his  historical  and  earthly 
ministry?  The  predictions  of  the  return  of 
Christ,  the  eschatological  notion  of  judgment, 
all  the  data  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  apoca- 
lypse concealed  also  principles  of  permanent 
value,  truths  of  infinite  importance,  which  the 
dogmatician  is  called  upon  to  free  from  their 
local  and  temporary,  hence  antiquated  and  con- 
tingent, expression,  in  order  to  clothe  them  with 
a  form  intelligible  to  contemporary  thought  and 
culture. 

I  am  not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  in  the  eyes 
of  many  theologians  this  work  of  elimination  and 
concentration  is  equivalent  to  a  mutilation  and 
impoverishment  of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  evan- 
gelical faith  ;  but  their  summary  condemnation 
is  inspired  by  a  sentiment  which  —  I  say  it  with 
all  respect — is  nevertheless  the  fruit  of  a  grave 
and  regrettable  mistake  :  they  persist  in  confound- 
ing the  container  and  the  contained,  the  eternal 
life  which  emanates  from  the  Gospel  and  its  his- 
torical and  transient  expression.  To  those  who 
are  guilty  of  this  confusion  we  dare  to  submit 
some  observations  which  will  perhaps  cause  them 
to  see  that  our  point  of  view  is  something  other 
than  a  fickle  and  culpable  conception. 

In  the  first  place,  this  discrimination  which 


174  AN  INTRO D  UCTION  TO 

they  reject  in  theory  they  themselves  practice. 
To  be  sure,  they  restrain  the  extent  of  their  ap- 
plication and  limit  it  to  what  they  call  the  sec- 
ondary points  of  the  biblical  teaching,  but  by 
their  very  example  they  show  that  they  are  far 
from  condemning  the  necessity  and  the  legiti- 
macy of  the  work  for  which  they  reproach 
us.  In  a  word,  then,  the  point  at  issue  between 
our  adversaries  and  us  is  only  a  matter  of  meas- 
urement, a  simple  question  of  the  extent  of  ap- 
plication, enlarged  or  narrowed  according  to  the 
judgment  of  one  or  the  other.  To  tell  the  truth, 
they  alone  have  the  right  to  cry  "  Scandal!  "  or 
"Sacrilege  !"  who  dare  to  profess  without  reserva- 
tion and  without  reticence  the  doctrine  of  the 
plenary  and  literal  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures ; 
but  to  abandon  this  position,  to  open  up  in  the 
tradition  of  verbal  inspiration  gaps  which  cause 
it  to  fall  on  all  sides,  is  not,  I  think,  to  acquire 
and  merit  the  right  of  casting  blame  and  discredit 
upon  those  who,  after  all,  do  not  proceed  other- 
wise than  the  theologians  in  question.  Away 
with  these  illusions  and  equivocations  !  In  try- 
ing to  disengage  evangelical  science  from  the 
Hebraic  or  Greek  element  which  is  mixed  with 
it,  we  are  doing  conscientiously,  and  in  the  in- 
terest of  religion  and  science,  that  which  each 
true  believer,  each  earnest  Christian,  does  every 
day,  but  instinctively,  haphazard,  unawares,  for 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 7  5 

the  sake  of  his  own  edification  and  personal  im- 
provement. What  is  it  which  moves  the  believer 
in  the  presence  of  the  redemptive  work  of  the 
Savior  ?  Is  it  the  minute  agreement  between  the 
rites  of  Leviticus  and  the  details  of  the  passion 
of  Christ,  or  is  it  the  miracle  of  love  and  devo- 
tion which  stands  forth  in  this  greatest  of  sacri- 
fices ?  What  is  it  which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  lowly 
and  the  humble,  of  the  poor  in  spirit  and  the 
heroes  of  the  faith — what  is  it  that  gives  to 
the  Gospel  of  Emmanuel,  I  will  not  say  its 
sovereign  beauty  and  its  conquering  attraction, 
but  its  permanent  truth  and  its  infinite  value  ? 
Is  it  the  material  prodigy  of  a  birth  which  took 
place  in  spite  of  the  laws  of  ordinary  physiology, 
or  the  moral  revelation  of  a  divine  communica- 
tion made  to  humanity,  of  an  ineffable  gift  of 
the  grace  of  the  heavenly  Father  to  his  unfor- 
tunate and  lost  children?  What  is  it  that  causes 
words  of  confidence,  of  consolation  and  victory, 
to  rise  to  the  lips  of  the  dying?  What  is  it 
which  causes  to  shine,  beyond  the  night  of  our 
mourning,  the  dawn  of  an  eternal  day?  Is  it  a 
theory  of  the  transcendent  and  incorruptible  life 
of  the  resurrection,  or  the  confidence  in  a  Savior 
who  has  vanquished  death,  who  makes  us  citizens 
of  heaven,  and  who,  in  our  communion  with 
him,  gives  us  the  assurance  that  he  has  securely 
established  life  and  immortality?  It  is  enough 


176  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

to  ask  these  questions  to  convince  anyone  that 
the  attempt  to  distinguish  the  actual  foundation 
of  religious  experience  from  the  transitory  form 
of  theological  explanation  is  to  render  to  evan- 
gelical faith  an  inestimable  service. 

This  is,  indeed,  to  bring  to  theological  science 
the  most  valuable  light  and  most  substantial  sup- 
port. In  limiting  biblical  teaching  to  its  religious 
principle,  one  begins  to  take  seriously  and  to  put 
into  practice  the  organic  method  which  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Scriptures  demands.  To  assure 
to  the  dogmatic  proof  drawn  from  the  biblical 
books  its  value  and  its  force,  it  is  necessary  to 
get  at  and  disengage  the  religious  consensus 
which,  beyond  the  borrowed  theses  and  explana- 
tory corollaries  of  theology,  express  the  inner 
and  fruitful  unity  of  the  evangelical  revelation. 
Wherever  that  unity  fails,  wherever  that  religious 
consensus  ends,  there  is  no  room  for  any  dog- 
matic decision.  To  establish  a  dogma  is  not  to 
quote  a  text  of  Scripture ;  it  is  not  even  to  gather 
together  an  imposing  number  of  proof-texts ;  but 
it  is  to  show  that  the  dogma  is  the  authentic 
translation  of  the  religious  experience  of  Jesus, 
and  that  it  draws  its  substance  from  the  Gospel 
lived  and  proclaimed  by  the  Christian  com- 
munity. 

I  insist  emphatically  upon  that  last  point. 
The  pretension  of  some  theologians  to  reduce 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  \  ^  ^ 

the  Gospel  to  a  petty  list  of  words  of  the  Master, 
transmitted  by  the  synoptics,  seems  to  me  as  un- 
justified as  it  is  dangerous.  If  it  is  true  that  the 
Gospel  has  appeared  in  the  person  of  the  Savior, 
if  that  Person  has  given  to  consciences  an  all- 
powerful  impulse  and  is  engraved  with  indelible 
marks  upon  the  hearts  of  his  disciples,  it  is  very 
evident  that  we  have  in  the  faith  of  the  primitive 
church  the  continuation  of  the  consciousness  of 
Jesus,  the  brilliancy  of  the  light  which  comes 
from  him,  the  magnificent  breaking  forth  of 
the  divine  light  which  he  has  brought  to 
humanity.  In  this  regard,  the  literature  of  the 
New  Testament,  in  spite  of  the  strange  alliance 
which  was  early  established  in  it,  is  a  fruit  of  the 
inspiration  of  Christ  and  is  a  real  part  of  his 
work.  To  forbid  oneself  the  dogmatic  use  of  the 
epistles  or  the  fourth  gospel  is  therefore  to  re- 
strain gratuitously  the  influence  exercised  by  the 
historical  Christ,  and  to  injure  not  only  the  the- 
ology of  the  New  Testament,  but  the  divine  con- 
tent of  the  evangelical  revelation.  Such  a 
mutilation  would  be  equivalent  to  the  bankruptcy 
of  Protestant  dogmatics. 

In  order  to  reach  and  express  in  a  faithful  and 
complete  manner  the  religious  experience  in  the 
consciousness  of  Jesus,  we  must  not  only  follow 
its  continuation  in  the  apostolic  age;  we  must  also 
add  to  it  a  study  of  the  preparatory  revelation 


1 78  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  which  the  Old  Testament  is  the  document.  A 
profound  and  exact  comprehension  of  the  reli- 
gious ideas  of  the  New  Testament  is  possible 
only  on  the  condition  of  constant  recourse  to  the 
essential  principles  of  the  religion  of  Israel;  it  is 
indispensable  to  grasp  the  scriptural  data  of  the 
New  Testament  in  their  organic  relation  to  the 
religion  of  the  Old  Covenant  and  to  that  of  con- 
temporary Judaism.  Without  doubt  the  respect- 
ful reverence  of  the  Son  of  man  with  regard  to 
the  past  of  Israel  was  always  accompanied  by  a 
sovereign  independence,  but  the  word  addressed 
by  the  Christ  of  John's  gospel  to  the  Samaritan 
woman1  is  the  authentic  expression  of  the  thought 
of  Jesus,  which  is  drawn  from  the  testimony  of 
the  synoptics.  Thus  Christian  dogmatics  can 
only  bow  with  gratitude  to  the  attempts  of  the 
young  theologians  who  "  seek  to  relate  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  to  the  religious  development  which 
had  preceded  him,"  and  who  remind  us  that  the 
Master, 

as  well  as  the  other  men  of  his  generation,  learned  to 
read  the  Old  Testament  through  the  medium  of  a  theology 
which  differed  very  materially  from  it.  In  limiting  our- 
selves conscientiously  to  this  comparative  study  we  shall 
see  a  Christ  more  concrete,  more  truly  human  ;  he  will  ap- 
pear to  us  in  a  setting  which  will  better  emphasize  his  in- 
comparable grandeur,  and  we  shall  perceive  once  more 

'John  4  :  22  ;  'H  ffwrripla  tx  ruv  'lovSatuv  iffrlr. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 79 

that  nothing  in  the  course  o^  history  has  sprung  up  abso- 
lutely ex  abrupto  and  without  its  preparation.1 

Such  are  some  of  the  applications  which  the 
method  of  Protestant  dogmatics  demands.  His- 
torically, in  its  principle  and  in  its  results,  this 
method  may  also  be  called  psychological  and  ex- 
perimental, not  in  the  purely  subjective  and  indi- 
vidual sense  represented  by  Schleiermacher,*  but 
in  a  larger  and  more  substantial  meaning.  The 
experience  which  the  dogmatician  attempts  to 
analyze  and  translate  is  the  collective  experience 
of  the  Christian  community,  the  experience  of 
which  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  is  at  once  the 
source,  the  material,  and  the  norm. 

One  will  see  immediately  in  what  sense  we 
maintain  that  Protestant  dogmatics  has  for  its 
mission  the  scientific  expression  of  the  expe- 
riences accessible  to  the  Protestant  consciousness. 
Doubtless  the  dogmatic  affirmations  of  the  evan- 
gelical church  overreach,  in  extent  and  in  depth, 
the  content  of  the  individual  consciousness  of  each 
of  its  members  ;  but  it  is  necessary  that  each  Prot- 
estant should  be  in  a  position  to  make  an  experi- 
mental counter-test  of  the  religious  fact  of  which 
theology  has  established  the  scientific  formula. 

A  doctrine  whose  religious  content  we  are  not 

'EHRHARDT,  "  La  rScente  controverse  sur  1'eschatologie  de 
Je"sus  en  Allemagne,"  Revue  de  theologie  et  de  philosophie,  1895, 
P-  455- 

•See  above, Chap.  IV,  §11. 


l8o  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

able  personally  to  test  should  have  no  right  in 
the  system  of  Protestant  dogmatics.  If  it  is  ob- 
jected that  this  principle  might  be  very  far-reach- 
ing, we  would  not  contradict  the  statement ;  on 
the  other  hand,  we  think  that  the  principle  leads 
necessarily  to  the  dissolution  of  the  scholastic 
orthodoxy  under  all  its  forms.  But  this  disso- 
lution will  be  a  rich  gain  if  it  involves  the  re- 
organization of  Protestant  dogmatics  according 
to  the  evangelical  norm  and  according  to  the 
method  which  we  have  tried  to  define  and  de- 
fend. 

III. 

Thus  understood,  Protestant  dogmatics  needs 
the  help  of  a  series  of  auxiliary  sciences 
without  which  the  dogmatician  would  not  be 
able  to  fulfil  his  task. 

We  will  try  to  indicate  briefly  the  disciplines 
whose  collaboration  is  indispensable  to  dog- 
matics. In  indicating  the  role  of  each  of  these, 
we  will  begin  first  with  the  facts  concerning 
which  there  is  no  disagreement,  and  we  will  end 
our  summary  and  review  by  an  examination  of 
the  points  upon  which  agreement  among  theo- 
logians is  less  general. 

From  the  developments  which  precede,  it  is 
easy  to  conclude  that  biblical  studies,  in  particu- 
lar the  disciplines  which  are  designated,  unskil- 
fully enough,  by  the  name  of  Theology  of  the 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 8 1 

Old  and  New  Testaments,  possess  sovereign  im- 
portance for  the  theologian.  It  is  permissible 
to  affirm  that  our  conception  of  Protestant  dog- 
matics confers  upon  biblical  theology  a  dignity 
and  a  value  which  it  has  never  had  either  in  the 
schools  of  confessional  orthodoxy  or  among  the 
theologians  of  the  Awakening.  The  procedure 
followed  by  both  of  these  was  as  elementary  as 
it  was  superficial.  They  considered  the  Bible  a 
collection  of  supernatural  oracles  ;  they  used  the 
Scriptures  as  an  infallible  code ;  they  limited 
themselves  to  gathering  up  indifferently,  from 
all  parts  of  the  biblical  canon,  isolated  quotations 
and  verses  serving  as  proof-texts  or  instruments 
of  their  confessional  polemic.  The  theory  of 
verbal  inspiration  dragged  its  leveling  influence 
through  all  the  pages,  through  all  the  words,  of 
the  Bible,  smothering  the  historical  meaning  under 
the  weight  of  traditional  scholasticism,  destroy- 
ing the  personal  character  of  individualities,  effa- 
cing the  differences  of  times  and  of  places.  They 
doubted  neither  the  doctrine  of  unity  of  all  the 
biblical  books  nor  the  identity  of  scriptural  teach- 
ings with  official  dogmatics.  Biblical  theology 
had  not  yet  become  conscious  of  itself ;  it  had 
not  been  established  in  an  independent  manner; 
it  is  almost  as  though  the  religious  inspiration  of 
the  heroic  age  of  the  Reformation  was  preparing 
from  afar  its  coming  and  its  emancipation.  The 


1 8  2  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

problem  of  the  relationship  of  biblical  theology 
to  dogmatic  science  had  not  been  stated ;  it  did 
not  even  exist. 

How  much  has  the  situation  of  the  theologian 
changed  since  the  formation  and  the  vigorous 
development  of  those  disciplines  which,  freeing 
themselves  from  the  yoke  of  dogmatic  obstacles 
and  polemical  preoccupation,  applied  to  the  sa- 
cred books  a  severely  historical  method  and  set 
forth  objectively  the  religious  and  moral  ideas 
which  found  their  expression  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments!  Henceforth  there  could  be  no 
question  of  classifying  under  the  rubrics  of 
official  dogmatics  a  more  or  less  considerable 
series  of  texts  of  various  origins  and  values.  We 
have  tried  to  show  to  what  delicate  and  difficult 
tasks  a  historical  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  in- 
vites and  compels  dogmaticians;  we  have  likewise 
indicated  already  the  relations  which  obtain  be- 
tween biblical  theology  and  systematic  theology. 

Biblical  theology  is  a  historical  science;  its 
task  is  to  set  forth,  in  their  genesis  and  in  their 
organic  connection,  the  religious  and  moral  ideas 
of  which  the  biblical  books  are  the  manifold  and 
varied  documents;  hence  it  is  not  allowed  to 
confound  different  epochs,  places,  and  authors. 
It  leaves  to  the  religious  witness,  to  each  doctrinal 
type,  its  own  individuality  and  its  original  form; 
it  does  not  conceal  the  shades  of  meaning  and 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  183 

oftentimes  very  noticeable  differences  which  dis- 
tinguish the  conceptions,  or  groups  of  conceptions, 
contained  in  the  sacred  books;  it  takes  account 
of  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  of  the  environ- 
ment, and  of  the  time;  it  searches  for  the  genera- 
tive principle  of  the  religious  teachings  or  theo- 
logical systems;  it  indicates  the  influences  which 
have  modified  them;  it  determines  their  relations, 
their  affinities,  their  divergences;  it  does  not  raise 
these  into  a  synthesis  until  it  is  authorized  by 
precise  observation,  and  by  exact  and  minute 
analysis.  That  is  to  say,  biblical  theology  furnish- 
es to  Protestant  systematic  theology  (dogmatics) 
the  principal  material  of  its  scientific  work.  The 
part  which  the  dogmatician  is  called  upon  to  per- 
form by  drawing  upon  the  results  required  by  the 
biblical  sciences;  how  he  rests  upon  the  broad 
and  solid  foundation  which  historical  knowledge 
of  the  sacred  books  gives  to  him,  and  which  the 
organic  method  of  scriptural  interpretation  insures 
to  him,  according  to  which  principles  he  is  able 
to  establish  dogmatic  proof  by  referring  ever  to 
the  experience  of  the  Christian  community  and 
to  the  religious  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ — that 
is  what  we  have  tried  to  show  above.  Without 
doubt  this  work  is  infinitely  less  simple  and  less 
easy  than  the  accumulation  of  biblical  passages 
torn  from  their  context  and  artificially  grouped 
according  to  a  scheme  foreign  to  the  first  inten- 


1 84  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

tions  of  their  authors;  but  the  irreparable  ruin 
of  the  verbal-inspiration  system  necessarily  in- 
volves a  radical  transformation  of  the  relations 
to  be  established  between  biblical  theology  and 
dogmatic  science;  if  the  latter  is  tributary  to 
the  former,  it  is  only  because  a  strong  and  pro- 
found knowledge  of  the  historical  meaning  and 
of  the  religious  inspiration  of  the  sacred  docu- 
ments is  necessary. 

Delivered  from  the  tyranny  of  traditional 
scholasticism,  confined  to  its  task  of  a  strictly 
historical  science,  biblical  theology  renders  to 
systematic  theology  services  whose  value  and 
extent  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate.  There  is 
no  presumption  in  maintaining  that  dogmaticians 
have  hardly  begun  their  task  today  by  undertak- 
ing it  in  this  way,  and  by  orienting  their  labors 
in  the  direction  which  this  new  conception  of 
biblical  sciences  marks  out  for  them. 

However,  the  faithful  and  independent  com- 
prehension of  primitive  Christianity  needs  an 
indispensable  complement.  While  it  is  established 
that  biblical  theology  is  the  first,  and  to  be  sure  the 
fundamental,  dominating  chapter  of  the  history  of 
Christian  thought,  it  is  doubtless  true  that  the 
germinating  of  the  evangelical  principle  and  its 
primary  manifestations  in  the  Jewish  and  Hellenic 
world  cannot  be  separated  from  its  evolution  and 
changes  through  the  centuries.  The  dogmatician 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 85 

cannot  take  a  step  without  a  knowledge  and  a 
study  of  the  history  of  dogmas. 

The  time  is  past  when  we  may  reduce  the 
history  of  dogmas  to  a  review  of  more  or  less 
obscure  and  bizarre  opinions — a  veritable  flower- 
pot, once  filled  with  rare  and  exotic  plants,  it  is 
true,  but  now  all  dead  and  dried  up.  In  the 
hands  of  Baur,  of  Thomasius,  and  of  Ritschl,  of 
Nitzsch,  and  of  Harnack,  the  history  of  dogmas 
has  ceased  to  be  a  simple  repertoire  of  formulas, 
a  museum  of  dogmatic  antiquities;  it  is  even 
more  than  a  simple  witness;  it  is  a  judge  which, 
throwing  its  light  on  the  past,  enlightens  the 
present,  and  often  throws  its  prophetic  gleams 
into  the  future.  Applied  to  the  erroneous  ele- 
ments which  were  mixed  with  the  Christian  truth 
in  the  course  of  the  centuries,  it  is  an  agent  of 
dissolution  as  powerful  as  it  is  salutary;  but  its 
patient  inquiry,  its  indefatigable  analysis,  its  con- 
stantly repeated  verification,  are  able  to  bring  to 
light  the  fruitful  germs  whose  development  will 
help  us  to  penetrate  farther  in  our  comprehension 
and  knowledge  of  the  evangelical  revelation. 
Under  this  head,  no  work  since  the  publication  of 
the  works  of  Ritschl  has  rendered  to  systematic 
theology  more  valuable  services  than  Harnack's 
History  of  Dogma;  no  one  has  given  to  dogmatic 
thought  a  more  fruitful  and  more  lasting  impulse; 
the  chapters  which  the  author  devotes  to  Origen, 


1 86  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

to  Athanasius,  to  Augustine,  and  to  Luther  are 
contributions,  not  only  to  history,  but  as  well  to 
the  scientific  study  of  the  Christian  truth  itself. 
In  the  dogmatic  evolution  of  the  Christian 
faith  there  are  epochs  and  individualities  to 
which  the  Protestant  dogmatician  necessarily 
gives  the  preference  of  his  attention  and  his  in- 
terest. He  will  have  to  make  a  specially  large 
and  important  place,  I  will  not  say  for  the  dog- 
matic views,  but  for  the  great  religious  concep- 
tions, of  our  Reformers.  This  distinction  be- 
tween the  formulas  of  their  theological  system 
and  the  substance  of  their  Christian  faith  is  es- 
sential. In  the  majority  of  cases  it  is  impossible 
for  us  to  preserve  the  formal  outline  of  their 
theology,  to  appropriate  to  ourselves  their  pro- 
cesses of  argumentation,  to  follow  them  on  the 
ground  of  their  exegesis  ;  but  the  sacred  founda- 
tion of  their  very  life,  the  glowing  material  of  their 
religious  experiences,  their  inspirations,  and  their 
intuitions — that  is  what  it  is  important  to  con- 
serve ;  it  is  a  treasure  which  every  Protestant 
theologian  ought  to  receive  and  value  with  pious 
fidelity  and  jealous  care.  It  is  possible  and  ne- 
cessary to  remain  in  close  and  living  touch  with 
the.  spiritual  fathers  of  our  church  ;  to  establish  a 
direct  and  constant  connection  between  the  prob- 
lems of  the  present  hour  and  the  imperishable 
principles  which  have  sprung  from  the  depths  of 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  187 

the  Protestant  life;  to  safeguard  the  essential 
content  of  the  grand  evangelical  tradition  of 
which  they  were  the  founders  and  interpreters. 
Not  to  participate  in  a  study  of  our  Reformers 
in  order  to  comprehend  the  religious  roots  of 
the  great  Protestant  doctrines  and  even  to  renew 
their  antiquated  form ;  to  break  with  a  past  of 
inexhaustible  richness ;  to  disdain  or  ignore  sys- 
tematically the  spiritual  heritage  of  our  fathers 
in  the  faith  —  that  is  not  only  to  display  a  super- 
ficial radicalism,  it  is  also  to  deprive  oneself  gratui- 
tously of  the  most  fruitful  and  sometimes  the 
most  striking  and  unexpected  lessons.  On  many 
points,  in  fact,  where  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
agree  with  the  theological  solutions  proposed  by 
our  Reformers  or  borrowed  by  them  from  the 
Roman  church,  we  find  in  the  writings  of  Luther 
or  of  Zwingli,  of  Melancthon  or  of  Calvin,  the 
religious  principles  by  whose  help  we  are  able  to 
fill  up  the  gaps  and  correct  the  inconsistencies  or 
the  errors  of  their  dogmatics.  In  every  one  of 
these,  especially  in  Luther,  it  is  easy  to  perceive 
a  double  spiritual  and  theological  current,  one 
which  proceeds  from  the  Gospel  regained  and  as- 
similated by  inner  and  personal  faith,  another 
which  is  dominated  by  the  influences  and  remnants 
of  scholasticism  and  the  Roman  tradition.  Be- 
tween these  two  currents  the  choice  which  is 
imposed  upon  the  dogmatics  of  contemporary 


1 88  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Protestantism  could  not  be  doubtful ;  the  origina- 
tors of  our  evangelical  faith  themselves  traced 
the  way  which  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  follow 
without  hesitation  or  weakness. 

It  follows  from  our  observations  on  the  Re- 
formers that,  in  the  chain  of  historical  sciences 
of  which  Protestant  dogmatics  is  a  tributary,  the 
discipline  which  bears  the  name  of  symbolics 
forms  an  indispensable  link  and  occupies  a  place 
of  great  importance.  Like  the  history  of  dog- 
mas, symbolism  has  undergone  in  our  day  a 
transformation  as  fortunate  as  it  is  profound,  and 
has  gained  an  important  position  in  the  cycle  of 
theological  sciences.  Its  role  is  no  longer  limited 
to  writing  up  the  dogmatic  likenesses  or  differ- 
ences which  obtain  between  the  particular  con- 
fessions ;  it  has  broken  with  the  superficial  and 
fragmentary  method  of  loci,  which  breaks  up  the 
fruitful  and  living  unity  of  religious  organisms 
and  conserves,  after  this  mutilation,  only  the 
scattered  and  lifeless  members ;  it  aspires  to  a 
view  of  the  whole  ;  it  wishes  to  comprehend  and 
express  the  inspiring  life  which  has  given  birth 
to  the  churches  and  which  has  guided  them  in 
the  rites  of  cult  and  in  the  mechanism  of  consti- 
tution, not  less  than  in  doctrinal  decisions. 
This  large  and  profound  conception  of  traditional 
symbolics  is  singularly  adapted  to  clarifying 
and  strengthening  the  researches  of  the  dog- 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 89 

matician.  That  which  we  have  called  above1  the 
"confessions  of  faith,"  or  that  which  the  dogma- 
tician  is  supposed  to  draw  from  the  primitive  and 
authentic  documents  of  the  different  Christian 
churches,  will  find  its  application  and  its  con- 
firmation in  the  use  which  the  theologian  will 
make  of  symbolics  and  in  the  services  which  it 
cannot  fail  to  render  to  him.  These  services 
will  increase  and  gain  in  extent  and  depth  in  the 
measure  in  which  the  dogmatician,  interpreting 
the  text  of  the  creeds,  will  know  how  to  get 
back  of  the  theological  formulas  in  order  to 
reach  the  original  experiences  and  immediate 
affirmations  of  the  Protestant  consciousness 
renewed  and  enlightened  by  the  Gospel. 

This  work  of  historical  criticism  and  of  psy- 
chological and  religious  analysis  could  not  be 
limited  to  the  official  creeds  of  the  Protestant 
church  and  of  neighboring  or  rival  confessions. 
It  should  extend  beyond  that  and  bear  upon  the 
entire  development  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
dogmatics.  The  study  of  the  history  of  theology 
is  the  necessary  complement  of  the  study  of  the 
history  of  dogmas  and  of  symbolism.  Evangeli- 
cal confessionalism  reached  its  acme  in  the 
systems  elaborated  by  the  orthodox  masters  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  whose  subtle  distinc- 
tions, repulsive  terminology,  and  incessant  polem- 

'Chap.  V,§I. 


190  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

ics  too  often  covered  up  their  dialectic  virtuosity 
and  their  religious  value.  The  dogmatician  of 
our  times  will  make  a  grievous  mistake  if  he 
accords  to  the  dignified  documents  of  our  fathers 
only  the  smile  of  pity  or  disdain.  Some  of  the^ 
most  eminent  theologians  of  our  century  have 
confessed  that  their  thought  has  been  made  more 
acute,  has  been  fortified  and  enriched,  by  the 
school  of  these  old  masters  ;  it  will  suffice  us  if, 
inspired  by  their  example,  we  shall  gather  from 
our  acquaintance  with  these  orthodox  teachers, 
so  much  denounced,  a  serious  gain  which  the 
ignorant  and  the  proud  are  not  aware  of.  Finally, 
if  the  dogmatic  system  of  our  Protestant  scho- 
lastics goes  to  pieces ;  if  their  philosophical 
arguments  are  worn  threadbare  ;  if  their  scientific 
formulas  often  appear  to  us  unintelligible ;  if 
their  exegesis  nearly  always  shocks  or  amuses 
us,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  at  the  bottom 
of  that  dogmatic  system,  which  the  biblical 
criticism,  the  history  of  dogmas,  and  reli- 
gious psychology  have  condemned,  there  are 
many  times  concealed  a  precious  truth,  a  Chris- 
tian experience,  a  profound  and  delicate  intuition, 
a  living  and  right  perception  of  spiritual  realities, 
a  vigorous  and  legitimate  affirmation  of  evangeli- 
cal piety.  To  disengage  from  a  rude  scholasticism 
the  pure  gold  of  the  religious  life  ;  to  discriminate 
between  the  theological  forms  of  the  past  and  the 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 9 1 

Christian  truth  which  survives  all  theologies ;  to 
dispense  with  the  formula  not  acceptable  to 
modern  thought  and  conscience,  but  to  safeguard 
the  religious  interests  to  which  the  conscience  and 
the  thought  of  today  should  render  homage  — 
such  is  the  lesson  which  not  only  the  history  of 
dogma  and  symbolics,  but  even  the  apparently 
unwelcome  and  laborious  study  of  the  master- 
pieces of  the  Reformation,  should  bring  to  the 
dogmatician. 

Do  we  need  to  apply,  in  much  larger  measure, 
what  has  been  said  of  Protestant  scholasticism  to 
the  later  theology  ?  Profound  knowledge  and 
independent  study  of  the  dogmatic  systems  of 
modern  times,  particularly  an  understanding  of 
the  theological  movement  born  of  the  great  revo- 
lution consummated  by  Schleiermacher,  are  an 
indispensable  presupposition  of  all  progress  in 
dogmatic  science.  We  have  so  often  been 
obliged  to  appeal  to  the  principles  established  by 
the  great  inaugurator  of  modern  theology,  his 
name  is  so  many  times  encountered  in  the  course 
of  our  researches,  that  it  seems  to  me  useless  to 
insist  further  on  a  point  that  will  not  be  doubted 
by  anyone. 

The  foregoing  considerations  may  serve  to 
indicate  the  place  which  it  is  proper  to  assign  to 
Protestant  dogmatics  in  the  organism  of  the 
theological  disciplines.  Biblical  and  historical 


1 92  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

sciences  form  the  necessary  base  of  operation  for 
the  dogmatician  ;  the  very  existence  of  dogmatic 
science  presupposes  and  implies  the  liberal  devel- 
opment of  those  disciplines  each  of  which  is 
indispensable  to  the  normal  work  of  systematic 
theology.  If  the  faith  of  Christians  of  today  is, 
in  a  certain  sense,  the  child  of  the  faith  of  Chris- 
tians of  yesterday,  if  to  comprehend  it  in  all  its 
development  it  is  necessary  to  get  at  its  principle 
and  its  source,  the  person  and  the  work  of  Jesus 
Christ,  it  follows  that  dogmatics  and  ethics 
could  do  a  useful  and  fruitful  piece  of  work  only 
by  resting  invariably  upon  the  solid  foundation 
of  historical  theology  which,  taken  in  its  large 
meaning,  comprehends  both  exegesis  and  biblical 
theology.  This  is  the  classification  proposed  in 
the  majority  of  the  encyclopedias  of  the  theo- 
logical sciences.  The  attempt  of  some  con- 
temporary theologians  who  would  make  of 
systematic  theology  the  point  of  departure  or  the 
foundation  of  all  theology  comes  from  a  very 
proper  sentiment,  but  these  authors  deceive  them- 
selves by  drawing  from  indisputable  premises 
conclusions  rather  more  faulty  than  substantial. 
It  is  true  that  the  Christian  faith  is  the  root  and 
the  raison d'etre  of  Christian  theology,  but  it  does 
not  follow  by  any  means  that  it  is  necessary,  as  a 
first  task,  to  express  scientifically  this  faith  and 
translate  it  into  the  form  of  dogma.  Faith,  but 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 93 

not  the  systematic  exposition  of  faith,  is  the 
presupposition  of  theology  ;  the  evangelical  faith, 
the  inspiring  soul  of  Protestant  theology,  the 
material  and  substance  of  Protestant  dogma,  can- 
not take  shape  in  doctrine  and  be  scientifically 
formulated  except  after  a  long  historical  develop- 
ment. That  is  so  true  that  those  who  would  place 
systematic  theology  "at  the  initial  center  of 
Christian  theology"1  could  not,  in  practice,  es- 
tablish a  doctrinal  system  of  faith  without  the 
constant  collaboration  of  exegesis,  of  biblical  the- 
ology, of  the  history  of  dogma,  and  of  symbolics. 
If  this  is  true,  is  it  not  most  natural  and  con- 
sistent to  abide  by  the  accepted  division  and 
make  systematic  theology  the  center  of  the  or- 
ganism of  the  theological  disciplines  ? 

On  all  the  questions  of  methodology  and  en- 
cyclopedia which  we  have  lightly  touched  upon 
thus  far,  general  agreement  will  doubtless  be 
easy  enough.  Some  of  these  problems  have  to  do 
with  mere  expressions,  rather  than  fundamental 
principles,  and  perhaps  good  understanding  could 
immediately  be  established  if  on  all  sides  the  at- 
tempt were  made  to  define  precisely  the  elements 
of  the  discussion  and  if  a  uniform  terminology 
were  adopted.  No  one  would  find  it  difficult  to 
admit  that  practical  theology  forms  the  crown- 
ing point  of  the  construction  of  theological 

1  EMERY,  Religion  et  thlologie,  p.  548. 


194  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

sciences  ;  no  one  will  dispute  the  essential  services 
which  a  well-ordered  dogmatic  system  renders 
to  the  preacher,  to  the  teacher,  to  the  pastor. 
On  the  other  hand,  practical  theology  serves  as  a 
control  and  counterbalance  of  systematic  the- 
ology. In  a  word,  what  is  a  dogmatic  system 
which  does  not  lead  finally  to  the  service  and 
edification  of  the  church  ?  What  would  be  the 
value  of,  what  would  be  the  sanction  for,  a  doctrine 
which  confined  itself  to  the  inaccessible  spheres 
of  pure  abstract  thought,  which  isolated  itself 
from  all  the  practical  interests  of  the  Christian 
community,  which  renounced  the  purpose  of 
serving,  at  the  same  time,  as  the  expression  of 
the  piety  of  believers  and  as  the  incentive  of 
the  thought  of  theologians?  "You  shall  know 
them  by  their  fruits."  Practical  efficiency,  re- 
ligious fruitfulness,  richness  of  spiritual  and 
vivid  applications  —  such  is  for  the  church  the 
test  of  each  theological  doctrine  ;  such  is  the 
earnest  entreaty  from  which  evangelical  dogma 
cannot  escape  ;  there  is  the  vital  knot  of  the 
indissoluble  relationship  which  unites  Protes- 
tant systematic  theology  with  practical  the- 
ology. 

We  have  spoken  several  times  of  systematic 
theology.  With  the  majority  of  encyclopedists 
we  mean  by  this  term  Protestant  dogmatics  in 
its  relations  to  Christian  ethics.  We  will  define 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  195 

briefly  these  relations  and  try  to  determine  their 
characteristics. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  relation- 
ship between  dogmatics  and  ethics  depends  upon 
the  idea  that  one  has  of  the  relationship  between 
religion  and  Christian  morality.  The  indissolu- 
ble union  which,  in  Christianity,  obtains  be- 
tween religion  and  morality  expresses  and  reveals 
itself  in  the  inner  relationship  which  exists 
between  dogmatics  and  ethics.  In  a  word,  dog- 
matics is  the  systematic  exposition  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  in  its  state  of  dependence  upon  God  ; 
it  corresponds  to  the  religious  point  of  view. 
Christian  ethics  is  the  exposition  of  the  Christian 
faith  in  its  state  of  activity  with  reference  to  the 
world  and  one's  neighbor ;  it  corresponds  to  the 
moral  point  of  view.  The  first  of  these  disci- 
plines sees  in  the  Christian  consciousness  the 
product  and  the  object  of  divine  grace  ;  the  sec- 
ond considers  the  Christian  consciousness  as  the 
agent  and  the  subject  of  a  new  life.  Both  bear 
upon  identical  material,  but  they  consider  it  and 
study  it  from  different  viewpoints.  Thus  is  ex- 
plained the  union  which  for  a  long  time  has 
obtained  between  these  ;  thus  also  is  their 
present-day  separation  justified.  The  explanatory 
commentary  and  the  proof  of  our  proposition  are 
furnished  by  the  history  of  these  two  disciplines, 
which,  from  Calixtus  to  Schleiermacher,  and  from 


196  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Schleiermacher  to  Hofmann  or  to  Ritschl,  makes  it 
possible  to  note  an  ever-growing  consensus  of 
opinion  and  very  striking  defense  of  the  solution 
which  we  have  only  indicated  here. 

Though  it  is  possible  to  state  that  the  purely 
formal  question  of  the  classification  of  theologi- 
cal sciences  will  not  give  rise  to  very  lively  dis- 
putes, this  is  not  the  case  as  to  the  problem  which 
I  have  purposely  reserved  until  now,  because  the 
controversies  concerning  it  are  carried  on  with 
ardor  at  the  present  hour,  and  have  caused  un- 
pleasant misunderstandings. 

How  must  we  define  the  relation  of  dogmatics 
to  philosophy  ?  Must  we  give  the  latter  a  share 
in  the  elaboration  of  the  former  ?  Can  the  dog- 
matician  do  without  the  assistance  of  the  philo- 
sophical sciences,  or  does  he  need  their  help  and 
their  light  ? 

Let  us  come  closer  to  the  question  and  return 
to  our  point  of  departure  and  first  definition. 

Protestant  dogmatics  is  the  scientific  exposi- 
tion of  the  Protestant  faith.  Now,  the  Gospel  is 
alone  the  source  and  the  norm  of  that  faith  ;  con- 
sequently, dogmatics  cannot  draw  its  content  and 
find  its  laws  outside  of  the  Christian  revelation 
legitimizing  itself  to  the  consciousness  of  the  be- 
liever. In  other  words,  no  rational  philosophy, 
no  human  metaphysics,  no  so-called  profane 
science,  is  qualified  to  furnish  to  the  Protestant 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  197 

dogmatician  the  substance  of  his  doctrine;  that 
substance  is  given  to  him  by  his  faith  formed  in 
the  school  of  Christ  and  under  the  primordial  and 
continuous  activity  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  the  religious  material  whose  formula- 
tion dogmatics  seeks  should  proceed  from  the 
Christian  religion  comprehended  in  its  purity, 
that  is  to  say,  in  its  principle,  which  is  the  re- 
ligious consciousness  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 
Christianity  being  a  life  which  is  incarnated  in  a 
person  and  realized  in  a  history,  no  system  of 
philosophy  can  ever  supply  the  constitutive  facts 
of  the  Christian  religion  which  are  the  generative 
facts  of  the  Christian  faith.  Religious  experience, 
determined  by  the  Gospel,  is  an  experience 
sui  generis,  inaccessible  to  the  natural  faculties 
and  produced  by  a  divine  factor  of  a  different 
order  from  that  of  the  theoretical  concepts  which 
depend  upon  philosophy.  Now,  Protestant  dog- 
matics stands  upon  the  ground  of  faith  ;  it  is  con- 
ceived and  constructed  in  the  interests  of  the 
communion  of  believers ;  it  is  the  scientific  or- 
ganism of  the  experience  of  the  church ;  it  pre- 
supposes and  implies  the  fact  of  an  inner  life 
whose  origin  is  a  new  birth,  whose  type  is  realized 
in  Jesus  Christ,  whose  goal  is  the  kingdom  of 
God.  It  follows  that  dogmatic  science,  faithful 
to  the  guiding  inspiration  of  the  Gospel,  is  com- 
pelled by  its  very  principle  to  find  its  point  of 


igS  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

departure,  its  center  of  gravity,  and  its  supreme 
sanction  in  an  authority  inaccessible  to  science, 
intangible  to  the  philosophy  of  any  school  what- 
soever. 

This  is  the  sense  in  which  it  is  proper  to  elimi- 
nate metaphysics  from  the  constitution  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics.  This  elimination  pertains  to 
the  content  and  the  very  foundation  of  Evangeli- 
cal doctrine ;  it  is  the  logical  corollary  and  the 
rigorous  application  of  the  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence of  Christian  piety  and  the  Protestant 
faith  ;  it  proposes  to  take  spiritual  realities  of  the 
Gospel  and  of  faith  away  from  the  sphere  of 
natural  reason  and  from  the  jurisdiction  of  human 
philosophy. 

Thus  understood,  the  principle  which  we  an- 
nounce is  only  the  scientific  statement  of  the 
thought  of  Jesus  and  his  great  apostle :  "  I 
thank  thee,  oh  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  of 
earth,  that  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the 
wise  and  the  learned  and  hast  revealed  them  un- 
to babes.  Yea,  Father,  I  thank  thee  that  this 
has  been  thy  good  pleasure"  (Matt.  11:25,  2^)  • 
"  Now  the  natural  man  (thepsychic  man)  receiveth 
not  the  things  of  the  spirit  of  God :  for  they  are 
foolishness  unto  him  ;  and  he  cannot- know  them 
because  they  are  spiritually  judged.  But  he  that 
is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things,  and  he  himself  is 
judged  of  no  man"  (i  Cor.  2 :  14,  15).  Is  it 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  1 99 

necessary  to  show  that  what  we  might  call  the  re- 
ligious program  of  the  Reformation  corresponded 
faithfully  to  the  words  of  Christ  and  his  disciple  ? 
In  declaring  that  theology  should  draw  the  mate- 
rial of  its  knowledge  from  the  Gospel  alone,  our 
Reformers  did  not  mean  merely  to  deliver  the 
church  and  its  teaching  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
Catholic  tradition,  but  they  wished  also  to  free 
it  from  the  heavy  yoke  or  the  doubtful  support 
of  all  foreign  speculation  and  all  borrowed  meta- 
physics. Although  they  did  not  accomplish  that 
enfranchisement  in  a  complete  and  radical  man- 
ner, they  did  establish  the  principle  with  a  clear- 
ness and  a  vigor  which  could  leave  nothing  to  be 
desired.  Protestant  dogmatics  cannot  abandon 
this  principle.  Schleiermacher  attempted  its  ap- 
plication by  regaining  for  the  religious  conscious- 
ness "an  independent  province,"1  and  an  increas- 
ing number  of  theologians  are  occupied  with  this 
method  which  the  illustrious  author  of  the  "  Reden 
fiber  die  Religion"  has  indicated  to  us.  In 
France,  Vinet  inaugurated,  in  an  independent 
manner,  a  method  which  at  many  points  runs 
parallel  to  that  of  which  Schleiermacher  has  been, 
in  Germany,  the  author  and  the  most  authori- 
tative interpreter. 

The   historical   statement   of   these  accepted 
affirmations  will  certainly  not  be  seriously  dis- 

*  Reden  iiber  die  Religion,  etc.,  1799. 


200  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

puted ;  but  it  is  probable  that  there  will  not  be 
such  ready  agreement  as  to  the  conclusions  to  be 
drawn  from  the  facts  we  have  just  stated.  We 
will  try  to  indicate  the  conclusions  which,  if  I  am 
not  mistaken,  grow  out  of  the  development  of 
modern  theology  in  the  Protestant  church. 

At  the  foundation  of  the  attempts  which  seek 
to  insure  the  independence  of  Christian  piety 
and  of  evangelical  faith  there  is,  if  only  in  the 
germ,  a  complete  theory  of  knowledge.  It  is 
doubtless  true  that  those  who  have  made  the 
Gospel  the  source  and  the  solitary  norm  of  reli- 
gious experience  are  not  conscious  of  having 
announced  a  principle  of  philosophical  import. 
It  is  none  the  less  true  that,  in  assigning  to  the 
data  of  the  moral  and  religious  consciousness 
a  sphere  inaccessible  to  the  verdict  of  natural 
reason,  they  have,  implicitly  and  unwittingly, 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  theory  of  religious 
knowledge.  In  order  to  set  forth  this  theory, 
which  is  at  the  foundation  of  the  statements  we 
have  just  made,  to  express  it  in  clear  and  precise 
formulas,  to  apply  it  with  safety  and  with  rigor, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  the  theologian 
hoping  for  success  in  such  a  task  should  be 
endowed  with  special  qualifications  and  should 
have  the  discipline  and  exercise  of  these  qualifi- 
cations in  a  school  of  philosophy.  In  other 
words,  every  theologian  who  proceeds  according 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  20 1 

to  a  determined  theory  of  knowledge  not  only 
needs  the  constant  help  of  psychology  and  logic, 
but  he  must  have  a  metaphysics.  The  dogma- 
tician  who  would  flatter  himself  in  building  his 
system  apart  from  these  philosophical  disci- 
plines would  be  the  victim  of  a  strange  illusion ; 
so  far  as  he  himself  is  concerned,  he  would 
handle  constantly  these  instruments  indispensable 
to  his  work,  but  which  ostensibly  he  imagines  he 
can  do  without ;  he  would  philosophize  without 
knowing  it. 

This  is  not  all.  The  dogmatician  who,  in  the 
very  name  of  the  Gospel  apprehended  by  faith, 
affirms  that  the  Christian  knowledge  is  in  essence 
subjective  and  practical,  that  it  implies  the  piety 
and  religious  activity  of  the  subject,  that  it  has 
for  its  condition  a  primordial  and  sovereign  ex- 
perience (I  mean  by  that  the  fact  of  the  birth 
into  a  new  life) — that  dogmatician  would  in  vain 
profess  or  affect  an  invincible  antipathy  toward 
all  philosophy  and  metaphysics  ;  in  taking  such 
a  position  he  is,  indeed,  very  far  from  remaining 
neutral  in  the  midst  of  the  conflict  of  philosophi- 
cal doctrines ;  by  his  positive  and  critical  atti- 
tude he  resolutely  announces  himself  against  one 
side  and  clearly  becomes  the  partisan  of  the 
other.1  If  he  does  not  consolidate  his  religious 

'While  distinguishing  carefully  faith  from  theology,  we 
would  unhesitatingly  agree  with  Bois :  "  The  development  of 


202  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

faith  with  some  philosophical  system,  he  still 
knows  that  among  the  philosophies  which  fill 
history  there  are  some  which  are  adverse  to  the 
vital  principle  of  Christianity,  while  there  are 
others  which  have  profound  affinities  with  the 
Gospel.  Without  entering  here  into  the  details 
of  a  complete  discussion,  I  will  say  that  among 
the  modern  systems  it  is  in  Kant's  philosophy 
that  the  Protestant  dogmatician  will  find,  not  the 
supports  for  his  faith,  but  the  postulates  which 
correspond  best  to  the  constitutive  experience  of 
the  evangelical  consciousness.  By  his  critical 
theory  of  knowledge  and  by  his  doctrine  of 
moral  freedom  the  philosopher  of  Konigsberg 
furnishes  to  the  Protestant  theologian  the  means 
of  translating,  with  force  and  clearness,  the 
truths  whose  living  material  and  unshakable 
certitude  he  draws  from  the  Gospel.  We  are 
therefore  far  from  professing  the  indifference  of 
Protestant  dogmatics  to  the  material  of  philoso- 
phy. To  maintain  that  one  may  be  a  Christian 
in  his  spirit  while  being  entirely  materialistic 
and  atheistic  in  philosophy  is  to  utter  the  most 
enormous  folly,  and  it  is  only  by  a  strange  mis- 
understanding that  an  eminent  theologian  of  our 

philosophical  science  is  of  special  interest  to  theologians,  for 
progress  in  theology  goes  hand  in  hand  with  progress  in  philoso- 
phy.''—^ philosophic  idtaliste  et  la  theologie  (Montauban,  1895), 
P- 4. 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  203 

times  has  been  charged  with  such  an  intellectual 
monstrosity.1 

However,  it  is  necessary  to  remove  all  mis- 
apprehension. If  we  appeal  to  the  Kantian 
theory  of  knowledge  and  to  the  Kantian  doc- 
trine of  liberty,  that  does  not  mean  that  the 
Christian  faith  borrows  its  credentials  from  criti- 
cism or  demands  its  sanction.  We  go  from  the 
Gospel  to  Kant,  and  not  from  Kant  to  the  Gos- 
pel, but  believe  that  Kantianism  puts  us  scien- 
tifically in  a  more  favorable  position  to  solve  the 
dogmatic  problem  presented  by  religious  faith. 

Does  anyone  object  that  this  dualism  of 
theoretical  reason  and  practical  reason,  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  and  of  moral  certitude,  renders 
all  apologetics  impossible  ?  We  answer  that 
the'common  procedure  which  starts  from  a  pre- 
tended natural  religion  in  order  to  reach  by 
demonstrative  method  the  truths  of  revelation  is, 
in  effect,  condemned  absolutely  by  the  principle 
which  we  are  trying  to  defend.  The  only 
method  which  corresponds  to  the  evangelical 
and  Protestant  point  of  view  is  indicated  with 
simplicity  and  profound  insight  in  the  well- 
known  word  of  Christ :  "  My  teaching  is  not 
mine,  but  his  that  sent  me.  If  any  man  willeth 
to  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  teaching, 

1  WENNAGEL,  La  logique  des  disciples  de  Ritschl  et  la  logique 
de  la  ktnosc  (Strasbourg,  1883),  p.  4. 


204  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of 
myself"  (John  7:  16,  17).  When  Vinet,  com- 
menting upon  these  words,  recalls  that  "there  is 
only  one  way  of  knowing  the  truth,  that  is  by  being 
in  the  truth,  "  he  traces  for  Christian  apologetics 
the  royal  way  which  alone  leads  to  the  Gospel. 
Without  doubt,  one  can  study  the  Christian  reli- 
gion in  an  objective  manner,  one  can  consider  it 
from  without  and  analyze  it  as  one  of  the  great 
phenomena  of  history  ;  such  is  the  attempt  made 
by  the  philosophy  of  religion  or  by  the  quite  mod- 
ern science  of  the  history  of  religions.  But  it  is 
important  not  to  confound  these  two  disciplines, 
as  is  done,  for  example,  by  the  Hegelian  school, 
which  voluntarily  merges  dogmatics  into  the  phi- 
losophy of  religion;  or  as  is  practiced  by  the 
traditional  orthodoxy,  which  disputes  or  denies 
the  legitimacy  of  a  science  according  to  which 
the  different  religions  are  mere  phenomena, 
objects  of  the  disinterested  researches  of  the 
historians  and  of  the  independent  appreciation  of 
the  psychologist.  There,  in  a  word,  is  the 
essential  difference  between  dogmatics  and  the 
philosophy  of  religion.  The  latter  chooses  its 
point  of  view  and  its  base  of  operation  outside 
of  the  Christian  community ;  it  has  not  for  its 
final  aim,  like  theological  disciplines,  the  edifica- 
tion and  the  guidance  of  the  church  ;  it  does  not 
stop  with  the  study  of  the  Christian  religion 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  205 

alone,  but  it  extends  its  investigations  to  all 
manifestations  of  a  religious  order,  whose  laws 
in  the  individual  and  in  society  it  seeks  to  com- 
prehend and  formulate.  Even  when  it  is  applied 
particularly  to  the  study  of  the  Christian  religion 
it  substitutes  the  causal  point  of  view  for  the 
teleological ;  it  passes  upon  Christianity  no  judg- 
ment of  a  practical  value;  it  does  not  take 
account  of  that  which  our  Reformers  considered 
as  essential  to  the  solution  of  every  religious 
problem  —  the  usage  of  doctrine,  the  utility 
which  it  affords,  the  fruit  which  we  derive  from 
it,  its  efficacy  and  its  strength. 

That  is  precisely  what  the  dogmatician  seeks. 
He  does  not  wish  to  analyze  Christianity  from 
without  and  have  it  before  him  as  a  fact  inde- 
pendent of  himself ;  he  takes  the  point  of  view 
of  religious  faith,  of  Christian  certitude.  For 
piety  can  comprehend  and  explain  Christianity 
only  in  the  measure  in  which  it  possesses  it  as  a 
life. 

However,  if  it  is  impossible  to  prove  theoreti- 
cally the  objective  truth  of  the  Christian  religion 
to  one  who  remains  a  stranger  to  the  experiences 
which  the  Gospel  communicates;  if  the  only 
valuable  and  decisive  legitimization  of  the 
Christian  truth  resides  in  the  effects  operated  by 
that  truth  upon  the  spirit  of  him  who  gives  him- 
self up  to  it,  then  Christian  theology  could  not 


206  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

on  this  account  give  up  its  apologetic  mission. 
Whether  a  particular  discipline  be  intrusted  with 
that  mission  or  whether  it  be  given  over  to  dog- 
matics itself  is  of  little  importance ;  that  which 
alone  is  essential  is  that  the  church  and  the 
science  which  works  in  its  service  shall  not  give 
up  this  task  in  the  presence  of  the  needs  and 
necessities  of  modern  thought  and  society.  In 
the  interests  of  the  task  to  be  accomplished  it 
would  doubtless  be  preferable  that  one  should 
apply  the  law  of  the  division  of  labor,  dogmatics 
giving  a  scientific  exposition  of  the  Christian 
faith  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Christian 
community,  and  in  behalf  of  the  members  of  that 
community,  apologetics  addressing  itself  to  those 
who  deny  or  dispute  the  legitimacy  of  the  reli- 
gious fact  and  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Apologetics  will  thus  have  a  place  in  what  was 
formerly  called  the  "prolegomena of  dogmatics." 
In  defining  clearly  the  proper  domain  of  religion 
and  the  sphere  of  scientific  knowledge,  apolo- 
getics has  the  mission  of  showing  that  the  reli- 
gious life  and  the  world  of  the  divine  are  in- 
accessible to  human  science.  They  belong  to  a 
different  sphere.  Science  is  not  qualified  either 
to  affirm  or  deny  the  religious  life.  The  religious 
life  has  no  hold  upon  science ;  it  is  not  allowed 
to  impede  it  in  its  researches  or  control  it  in  its 
results.  Again,  taking  the  offensive,  apologetics 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  207 

is  able,  in  a  measure,  to  convince  science  of  its 
inability  to  raise  itself  to  a  superior  synthesis 
the  need  of  which  is  essential  to  humanity.  The 
religious  and  Christian  explanation  of  the  world 
alone  furnishes  this  synthesis  by  making  nature 
a  means  and  instrument  at  the  service  of  spirit 
and  by  giving  to  spirit  for  its  supreme  end  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  that  is,  the  sovereign  good 
realized  by  love. 

But,  independently  of  the  particular  discipline 
which  we  have  just  denned,  Protestant  dogmatics, 
if  it  is  well  conceived  and  properly  conducted, 
may  do  an  essentially  apologetic  work.  In  the 
measure  in  which  dogmatics  limits  itself  to  the 
development  of  the  content  of  the  evangelical 
faith,  and  applies  itself  thus  to  showing  the 
foundation  of  the  Christian  certitude,  it  brings  to 
apologetics  a  valuable  contribution.  In  returning 
constantly  to  the  immovable  foundation  of  the 
religious  affirmations  of  the  believer,  the  dog- 
matician  shows  that  Christian  doctrine  is  not  a 
juxtaposition  of  dogmatic  theses  without  an  inner 
bond  or  common  principle,  but  a  body  of  well- 
articulated  truths  which  condition  and  sustain 
each  other,  a  system  bearing  the  stamp  of  a 
living  unity,  an  organism. 

It  is  to  this  point  that  I  would  further  call 
the  attention  of  the  reader.  We  have  denned  in 
the  present  chapter  the  method  of  Protestant 


208  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

dogmatics ;  we  have  indicated  its  place  in  the 
cycle  of  theological  disciplines  ;  and  we  have 
briefly  indicated  the  auxiliary  sciences  which  the 
dogmatician  cannot  dispense  with  in  his  scientific 
exposition  of  the  evangelical  faith. 

It  remains  to  indicate  summarily  the  inner 
organism  of  Protestant  dogmatics,  in  order  to 
comprehend  more  clearly  its  inspiring  content 
and  firm  articulation.  That  will  be  the  object  of 
the  last  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  ORGANISM  OF  PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS. 

I.  Critical  examination    of  the   principal  methods  of  dog- 
matic classification  adopted  in  the  Protestant  church. — The  local 
method  inaugurated  by  Melancthon  and  continued  by  his  com- 
mentators.— The  Christian  Institution  ;  influence  exercised  by  this 
masterpiece ;   the   type   of    Apostolic   Symbol ;   the   Trinitarian 
scheme. —  the  Lutheran  scholasticism;   the  synthetic  method  of 
the  early  doctors ;  the  analytic  method  introduced  by  Calixtus. 

—  The   Reformed    dogmatics;  the   federal    method;  the    abuse 
and  exaggerations  of  the  method  of  Coccejus.  —  The  construction 
attempted  by  Schleiermacher ;  his    own    criticism    of   it   in   his 
second  letter  to  Liicke. — The  necessity  of   following  these  in- 
dications and  applying  this  program :  it  is  necessary  to  borrow 
the    principle    of    division   of    dogmatics    from    the    Christian 
revelation  and  build   the  doctrinal  system  upon  the  foundation 
which  the  Gospel  furnishes  to  faith. — Different  varieties  of  this 
type. 

II.  Attempt  at  a  positive  solution. — The  christocentric  clas- 
sification   the    logical    result    of     the    Protestant    principle. — 
(l)    The   dominating   role  of  christology   and  of  soteriology. — 
Correlation  of  these  two ;  the  work  of  Christ  is  his  person  in 
action  ;  the  person  of  Christ  is  his  work  in  power. —  Radical  error 
of  the  method  applied  by  orthodox  scholasticism. —  Regressive 
procedure  in  the  ascendency  imposed  upon  Protestant  dogmatics 
by  evangelical  faith. — Analysis  of  the  principal  elements  of  the 
christological  and  soteriological  dogma. —  (2)   The  doctrine  of  God. 

—  Hybrid  character  of  the  "theology"  accepted   by  traditional 
orthodoxy. — Necessity  of  a  return  to  the  religious  and  spiritual 
traditions  founded  by  the  Reformation ;  Protestant  dogmatics  has 
for  its  task  the  scientific  exposition  of  the  religious  conception  of 
God  revealed   by    Jesus    Christ ;    experimental    and     practical 
character  of  this  conception.  —  (3)     The  dogma  of  creation.— -It 

209 


210  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

is  not  a  doctrine  borrowed  from  natural  religion.  —  Its  mission  is 
to  scientifically  formulate  the  faith  in  the  Creator. —  The  religious 
root  of  this  doctrine,  which  is  only  one  of  the  sides  of  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  God. —  (4)  The  dogma  of  Providence. —  Content 
and  foundation  of  the  Christian  faith  in  Providence ;  it  does  not 
rest  upon  the  empirical  observation  of  nature  or  of  history  ;  it  is 
not  a  simple  "postulate  of  the  moral  consciousness ;  it  is  based 
upon  the  fact  of  the  redemption  completed  by  Christ,  and  it 
resolves  itself  into  an  act  of  confidence  in  the  heavenly  Father. — 
The  religious  notion  of  miracle  and  of  Christian  theodicy. —  (5) 
Anthropology • — Point  of  view  of  Protestant  scholasticism  and  the 
christocentric  point  of  view. — The  conception  of  man  which  faith 
in  Jesus  Christ  implies  and  demands.  —  Christian  idea  of  sin  ;  it 
is  the  opposite  of  the  Christian  idea  of  the  highest  good  realized 
and  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ. — (6)  Subjective  realization  of 
salvation  and  its  individual  and  collective  appropriation.  —  (7) 
Eschatology. — It  is  the  continuation  of  soteriology.  —  Content 
and  foundation  of  the  Christian  faith  in  eternal  life.  —  (8)  The 
dogma  of  the  Trinity. —  It  is  the  complete  expression  of  the  work 
of  salvation  comprehended  in  its  ideal  conception,  its  objective 
accomplishment,  its  inner  and  permanent  realization.  —  It  forms 
the  crowning  part  of  the  system  of  Protestant  dogmatics. 

III.  Critical  examination  of  the  objections  directed  against 
the  christocentric  point  of  view.  — "  Incorporated  in  the  popular 
exposition  of  the  faith,  it  could  not  be  convenient  in  the  system- 
atic arrangement  of  Christian  doctrine.  — It  breaks  the  bond 
which  attaches  dogmatics  to  philosophy. — It  isolates  the  evangeli- 
cal revelation  from  the  religious  evolution  of  humanity  and  results 
in  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  history. — It  misapprehends  the  value 
of  natural  religion  and  renders  impossible  the  task  imposed  by 
faith  upon  Christian  apologetics."— Refutation  of  these  objec- 
tions, which  proceed  from  a  false  theory  of  religious  knowl- 
edge ;  criticism  of  that  theory. —  Results  and  conclusion. 

I. 

The  grouping  of  the  materials  which  con- 
stitute the  entire  organism  of  Protestant  dog- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2 1 1 

matics  should  not  be  arbitrary  or  indifferent.  It 
is  the  result  of  the  very  object  of  dogmatic  sci- 
ence, of  the  norm  which  governs  it,  and  of  the 
method  which  it  should  follow. 

Let  us  first  gather  up  the  information  which 
the  history  of  dogmatic  science  in  the  Protestant 
church  gives  to  us  on  this  point.  It  would  be 
presumptuous  to  break  with  the  tradition  be- 
queathed to  us  by  our  fathers,  but  we  should  sub- 
mit this  tradition  to  a  respectful  and  independent 
criticism.  Questioned  in  this  spirit,  history  will 
throw  valuable  light  upon  the  problem  which  we 
are  to  investigate.  The  excellence  of  the  first 
dogmatic  work  published  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury by  Melancthon,  x  the  wide  influence  which 
that  work  exercised,  the  almost  normative  au- 
thority which  it  has  enjoyed  for  nearly  half  a 
century  in  the  Lutheran  church,  cannot  conceal 
the  inadequateness  of  the  arrangement  adopted 
by  the  Reformer  either  in  the  first  publication 
or  in  the  subsequent  editions  of  his  Loci.  To  tell 
the  truth,  the  local  method,  inaugurated  by  Me- 
lancthon and  continued  by  his  commentators,  is 
entirely  void  of  scientific  value.  It  holds  to  an 
elementary  juxtaposition  of  the  principal  Chris- 
tian doctrines  whose  connection  it  does  not  at- 
tempt to  demonstrate,  and  which  it  does  not 
attempt  to  reduce  to  a  system. 

1  Loci  communes. 


212  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

The  great  religious  and  scientific  monument 
of  the  Reformation,  the  Christian  Institution, 
which  we  can  consider  here  only  from  a  formal 
point  of  view,  indicated  considerable  progress  in 
the  dogmatic  evolution  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Calvin  abandoned  the  local  method ;  the  attempt 
of  1536  followed  the  order  of  the  apostolic  creed; 
but  the  first  revision  of  1539,  and  especially 
the  final  edition  of  1559,  remained  entirely  faith- 
ful to  the  primitive  type,  containing  a  truly  sys- 
tematic exposition  of  the  Protestant  faith,  and 
distinguished  by  the  breadth  of  its  biblical  and 
dogmatic  developments,  by  its  simple  and  lumi- 
nous procedure,  by  its  solidity  and  exactness  in 
details.  The  trinitarian  scheme,  adopted  by  the 
authority  of  Calvin,  suffered  numerous  modifica- 
tions, but  continues  still  among  those  who  have 
accepted  the  Reformation,  where  one  may  find  it 
under  multiple  and  varied  forms.  However,  in 
spite  of  the  success  which  this  division  has  met 
even  in  the  ranks  of  contemporary  theology,  the 
arrangement  inspired  by  the  traditional  form  of 
the  apostolic  creed  does  not  seem  to  me  to 
answer  to  the  systematic  exigencies  of  Protes- 
tant dogmatics.  To  set  forth  in  series  the  dog- 
mas which  depend  upon  the  doctrine  of  the 
Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  to 
move  still  within  the  limits  of  an  external  and 
accidental  classification.  Consequently,  Calvin 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2 1 3 

did  not  remain  bound  by  this  superficial  three- 
fold division.  The  power  of  his  thought,  the 
vigor  of  his  dialectics,  and  the  richness  of  his 
faith  broke  through  the  primitive  mold;  or, 
rather,  they  made  a  new  one  ;  they  enlarged  it 
and  gave  to  it  a  form  in  harmony  with  the  needs 
of  religious  sentiment  and  with  the  theological 
virtuosity  of  the  great  Reformer. 

After  the  local  method,  there  followed,  in  the 
Lutheran  church,  the  attempt  to  construct  sys- 
tems, just  as  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  Summa  fol- 
lowed the  Sentences  ;  but  nothing  is  more  artifi- 
cial than  the  laborious  constructions  of  orthodox 
scholasticism,  nothing  is  less  like  a  living  organ- 
ism. Neither  the  synthetic  method  first  practiced 
nor  the  analytic  method  praised  and  used  by 
Calixtus  corresponds  to  the  real  character  of 
evangelical  faith  or  satisfies  the  scientific  inter- 
ests of  Protestant  dogmatics.  Doubtless  the  doc- 
tors were  in  search  of  a  central  idea,  of  a  genera- 
tive and  organizing  principle  of  a  system  ;  but  the 
universal  predominance  of  logic,  sterile  formal- 
ism in  the  process  of  exposition  and  argumenta- 
tion, ignorance  of  history  and  experience,  use 
of  a  polemic  often  meager  and  unintelligible,  the 
insufficiency  of  the  proof  drawn  from  the  Holy 
Scripture — irreparably  compromised  the  solidity 
of  these  very  imposing  structures. 

In  the  ranks  of   Reformed  theology  several 


a  1 4  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

attemps  at  systematization  were  for  a  long  time 
in  favor,  and  left  a  profound  impression  upon  the 
dogmatic  work  of  several  generations.  After  the 
sixteenth  century  certain  Reformed  doctors — 
Bullinger,  Olevianus,  Ursinus — considering  reve- 
lation as  a  covenant  between  God  and  man,  op- 
posed the  foedus  gratiae  to  the  foedus  naturae. 
After  these  indications  a  new  order  was  drawn 
up,  the  method  called  federal  which,  in  the  hands 
of  Coccejus,  was  more  directly  inspired  by  the 
biblical  spirit,  but  soon  discredited  itself  by  its 
abuse  of  religious  allegory  and  of  typology 
erected  into  a  system.  In  distinguishing  several 
phases  of  the  divine  education  of  humanity,  the 
federal  the.ology  rose,  it  is  true,  to  a  very  vivid 
and  very  true  conception  of  revelation ;  but  the 
dogmatic  conclusion  which  it  drew  from  these 
premises  caused  Christian  theology  to  deviate 
from  the  route  which  evangelical  faith  traces 
for  it.  In  a  word,  the  leaders  of  the  federal 
theology  chose  their  point  of  departure  outside 
of  Christianity,  whether  in  the  foedus  naturae  or 
in  the  legal  economy  prior  to  the  coming  of 
Christ.  They  started  out  with  a  sort  of  general 
revelation,  or  rather  a  natural  knowledge  of 
God.  This  finally  resulted  in  explaining  God 
the  Redeemer  by  God  the  Creator.  Notwith- 
standing appearances  to  the  contrary,  it  would  be 
unjust  to  make  Calvin  the  precursor  or  the  patron 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  2 1 5 

of  such  a  method.  The  Reformer  of  Geneva  was 
far  from  considering  Christianity  as  the  simple 
complement  of  a  so-called  natural  religion  uni- 
versally believed  and  adopted.  Such  a  conclu- 
sion would  imply,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  affirma- 
tion that  there  existed  a  light  superior  to  that 
which  Jesus  has  brought  to  the  world.  There  is 
not  one  of  our  ancient  Reformed  theologians 
who  would  have  dared  to  sustain  this  thesis.  Is 
it  not,  then,  wise  to  go  directly  to  the  very  heart 
of  Christianity,  under  the  full  light  of  revelation, 
in  order  to  find,  by  the  help  of  this  divine  light, 
the  living  organism  and  harmonious  body  of 
truth  revealed  and  realized  in  Jesus  Christ  ? 

It  is  on  this  account  that  it  is  not  possible  for 
us  to  adopt  the  very  original  construction  of 
Schleiermacher.  A  champion  of  the  autonomy 
of  the  religious  sentiment,  the  illustrious  dog- 
matician  took  up  his  place,  in  order  to  study  the 
Christian  consciousness,  beyond  the  sphere  of 
Christianity ;  he  analyzed  the  general  religious 
consciousness,  in  which  he  found  the  imprint  of  the 
activity  of  God,  the  Absolute  Cause.  It  is  after 
this  study  of  the  religious  sentiment  in  its  most  ele- 
mentary form  that  Schleiermacher  investigates 
the  Christian  consciousness  which  comprehends 
two  constitutive  elements — the  consciousness  of 
sin  and  the  consciousness  of  grace.  His  in- 
quiry extends  first  to  the  consciousness  of  sin, 


216  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

which  he  examines  in  itself  and  apart  from  the 
work  of  redemption.  The  exposition  of  the  dog- 
mas in  which  the  consciousness  of  grace  expresses 
itself  forms  at  once  the  main  body  and  the  chief 
part  of  his  dogmatic  system.  In  the  plan  thus 
adopted,  Schleiermacher  analyzes  each  dogma 
under  the  threefold  aspect  of  its  immediate  form 
in  consciousness,  its  relationship  to  the  divine 
attributes,  and  its  relationship  to  the  world.  The 
best  criticism  of  this  arrangement  has  been  made 
by  Schleiermacher  himself.  In  his  second  letter 
to  Liicke  he  has  sketched  the  dogmatic  program 
which  he  was  able,  according  to  his  own  con- 
fession, to  realize  only  in  a  fragmentary  and 
imperfect  manner  in  the  first  two  editions  of  his 
masterpiece.  Instead  of  delaying  with  the  pre- 
supposition of  the  Christian  consciousness,  instead 
of  analyzing  the  general  religious  consciousness 
and  the  consciousness  of  sin,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary, said  the  great  theologian,  in  judging  his  own 
work,  to  bring,  from  the  very  first,  all  the  weight 
of  dogmatic  analysis  to  bear  upon  the  Christian 
facts,  upon  the  consciousness  of  redemption;  it 
would  be  necessary,  for  example,  in  giving  an 
exposition  of  the  Christian  idea  of  God,  to  sub- 
ordinate all  other  definitions  to  that  of  the  God 
of  love,  the  heavenly  Father  revealed  in  Jesus 
Christ ;  it  would  be  necessary,  at  all  other  points 
of  the  system,  to  reverse  the  order  of  material,! 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2 1 7 

to  make  the  religious  experience  of  the  Christian 
the  base  of  operation,  and,  by  the  regressive 
method  of  induction,  to  develop  the  content  of 
the  Christian  consciousness  and  study  its  ele- 
ments. 

Schleiermacher  believes  that  this  method 
alone  is  in  harmony  with  his  principle,  that  is  to 
say,  with  the  declaration  of  independence  of  the 
Christian  consciousness,  with  the  emancipation  of 
Protestant  dogmatics  with  regard  to  philosophy 
and  the  natural  and  historical  sciences.  If  he 
did  not  himself  follow  the  method  indicated  with 
so  great  decision  and  clearness,  it  is  because  the 
illustrious  theologian  believed  that  he  ought  to 
accommodate  himself  longer  to  the  scheme  con- 
secrated by  usage  and  by  tradition  for  purposes 
of  Christian  pedagogy  and  theological  oppor- 
tunism. 

It  is  astonishing  that  these  aluminous  and 
convincing  indications  were  not  listened  to  with 
more  attention  and  followed  in  a  more  decided 
and  consistent  manner  by  the  theologians  who 
followed  Schleiermacher.  The  canon  which  he 
formulated  with  so  much  clearness  and  vigor  has 
not  been  often  applied  to  the  organism  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics.  Some  authors  have,  in  truth, 
inscribed  at  the  head  of  their  works  the  deside- 
ratum announced  by  the  great  renewer  of  modern 
theology,  but  the  execution  of  their  work  does 


218  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

not  correspond  to  the  promises  of  their  title- 
pages.  There  are  others,  however,  who  have 
taken  seriously  the  postulate  of  Schleiermacher, 
and  have  applied  it  with  clearness  and  consistency. 
Although  they  follow  very  different  routes,  they 
meet  at  one  chief  point  :  they  do  not  appeal  to 
the  so-called  primordial  data  of  natural  religion  ; 
they  do  not  try  to  build  Protestant  dogmatics 
upon  a  foundation  obtained  outside  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  they  rest  their  theological  construction 
solidly  upon  the  foundation  furnished  by  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  Whether 
they  find  in  the  fact  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
realized  by  the  Savior  the  dominating  thought, 
or  rather  the  living  center,  of  the  evangelical 
truth  ;  whether  they  consider  the  entire  Christian 
system  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  religious 
principle  of  justification  by  faith ;  whether  they 
seek  to  establish  the  solidarity  of  these  two  con- 
ceptions which  subserve  and  condition  each 
other  —  they  agree  in  seeking  for  the  living  unity 
of  Christian  doctrine  in  the  work  and  in  the 
person  of  Him  who  is,  for  the  Christian,  the 
unique  foundation  of  salvation.  The  attempt 
common  to  all  these  theologians  has  been  desig- 
nated by  a  name  which  in  itself  alone  is  a 
program  :  their  theology  aspires  to  be  christo- 
centric.  This  aspiration  seems  to  me  legitimate, 
and  I  would  attempt  also  to  set  forth  and  justify 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  2 1 9 

a  point  of  view  which,  while  assuring  to  Christian 
faith  its  full  independence,  guarantees,  for  that 
very  reason,  to  Protestant  dogmatics  its  scientific 
dignity  and  its  religious  value. 

II. 

If  it  is  established  that  Protestant  dogmat- 
ics is  the  scientific  exposition  of  the  evangeli- 
cal faith,  it  is  then  altogether  evident  that  it 
could  not  dispense  with  the  attempt  to  constitute 
itself  in  a  system  and  to  form,  not  an  artificial 
structure,  but  a  living  organism.  It  is  necessary 
that  each  particular  doctrine  should  be  taken  in 
its  dependence  upon  its  generative  principle 
and  its  relationship  to  each  of  the  connected 
doctrines  ;  it  is  necessary  that  the  dogmatic  propo- 
sitions, linked  together  by  the  bonds  of  an 
unchangeable  coherence,  should  be  members 
of  the  same  body,  whose  life  is  constantly  sus- 
tained by  an  inspiring  center  and  is  felt  at  all 
points  of  the  doctrinal  organism. 

This  formula  insuring  the  unity  of  the  dog- 
matic system,  we  will  guard  against  any  search 
beyond  the  limits  traced  by  the  Gospel,  because 
Protestant  dogmatics  is  precisely  the  systematic 
expression  of  the  faith  which  proceeds  from  the 
evangelical  revelation ;  we  will  reject  every 
plan,  every  arrangement  which  would  seek  in 
external  domains  for  the  spiritual  reality  affirmed 


220  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

by  the  Christian  consciousness ;  we  will  try  to 
draw  our  principle  of  division  out  of  the  very 
heart  of  the  Protestant  faith,  the  child  of  the 
Gospel.  After  our  researches  upon  the  norm 
and  the  method  of  Protestant  dogmatics,  the 
program,  some  of  the  principal  features  of  which 
Schleiermacher  has  sketched,  does  not  offer 
insurmountable  difficulties. 

Protestant  dogmatics  having  for  its  source 
and  its  norm  the  Gospel,  the  Word  of  God,  the 
divine  revelation  in  the  person  and  work  of 
Jesus  Christ,  it  follows  that  the  permanent  foun- 
dation of  the  Christian  faith  and  doctrine  con- 
tains also  the  organizing  and  guiding  principle 
of  every  dogmatic  system.  At  the  risk  of 
shocking  the  reader  by  a  barbarism  borrowed 
from  scholastic  terminology,  we  would  say  that 
Jesus  Christ,  principium  essendi  of  the  Christian 
faith,  is  also  the  principium  cognoscendi  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics ;  therefore,  the  order  which 
results  from  the  consistent  application  of  the 
Protestant  point  of  view  is  the  christocentric 
order. 

Is  it  necessary  to  demonstrate  that  this  thesis 
is  the  corollary  which  follows  necessarily  from 
all  of  our  premises?  Our  sole  effort  should  be 
to  attempt  to  assure  to  it,  in  all  parts  of  the 
dogmatic  system,  a  position  of  practical  and  in- 
contestable supremacy. 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2  2 1 

The  proper  object  and  the  substance  of  Prot- 
estant dogmatics  is  the  fact  of  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ :  that  central  truth  is  the  real  good 
in  the  organism  of  theological  thought,  the 
essential  thing,  the  only  necessary  thing.  "To 
cut  off  the  true  idea  of  salvation,"  a  recent  dog- 
matician  has  said,  "  is  to  destroy  at  one  blow 
the  reason  for  the  existence  of  theology."1 
Thus  stated,  the  question  is  placed  on  its  true 
ground.  It  is  necessary  to  take  seriously  only 
this  simple  and  rich  definition.  In  drawing  clearly 
its  limits,  in  developing  fully  its  content,  the 
task  of  the  Protestant  theologian  is  fulfilled. 

That  is  to  say  that  all  other  doctrines  are 
contained  in  this  primordial  and  final  dogma  ; 
they  are  its  presuppositions  or  its  consequences. 
In  order  that  they  shall  acquire  a  place  in  Prot- 
estant dogmatics  it  is  necessasy  that  they  shall 
make  good  their  title  of  essential  relationship  to 
the  doctrine  of  salvation,  the  keystone  of  the 
entire  theological  edifice.  In  other  words,  Prot- 
estant dogmatics  assigns  to  christology  and  to 
soteriology  the  chief  place  in  the  organism  of 
the  system;  it  clarifies  all  doctrines — anthro- 
pology, the  idea  of  God,  the  conception  of  the 
world,  eschatology — by  the  light  which  pro- 
ceeds from  the  divine  Revelation  in  Jesus  Christ. 

'GRE  TILLAT,  Expost  de  thiologie  systimatique,  Vol.  Ill,  pp. 
21-3. 


222  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

By  establishing  the  absolute  primacy  of  the 
Gospel  incarnated  in  the  person  and  work  of  the 
Savior,  everything  which  does  not  depend  upon 
the  central  fact  of  the  Christian  religion  is  elimi- 
nated systematically  from  the  body  of  Protes- 
tant dogmatics.  Protestant  dogmatics  does  not 
fear  to  discard  a  series  of  questions  which  have 
always  stimulated  the  curiosity  or  solicited  the 
speculation  of  theologians;  it  opposes  an  abso- 
lute non  liquet  to  the  researches  which  the  scho- 
lasticism of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  old  Prot- 
estant orthodoxy  equally  loved;  it  sacrifices 
metaphysics  for  experience  and  the  study  of 
transcendental  problems  for  the  statement  of 
positive  facts;  it  is  resigned  to  numerous  re- 
trenchments— serious  losses  in  the  eyes  of  the 
theologians  who  are  mistaken  as  to  the  limits 
imposed  upon  our  knowledge  and  as  to  the  re- 
sources at  the  disposal  of  the  human  spirit,  or 
rather  of  Christian  faith.  But  that  which  dog- 
matics loses  in  extent  it  gains  in  authority  and 
in  certitude,  since  it  makes  itself  the  faithful 
and  docile  interpreter  of  the  faith  produced  by 
the  Gospel  and  invariably  ruled  by  it.  We  will 
try  to  state  and  justify  these  assertions  by 
sketching,  in  their  sequence,  the  different  parts 
of  the  christocentric  organism  of  Protestant 
dogmatics. 

I.    The  first  result  of  the  christocentric  prin- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  223 

ciple  is  that  it  makes  it  necessary  to  assign 
the  first  place  to  the  doctrine  of  the  person  and 
the  work  of  Christ.  Whether  one  starts  immedi- 
ately with  christology  and  soteriology,  or 
whether  one  treats  first  the  "necessary  presup- 
positions of  the  Gospel,"  it  matters  little,  pro- 
vided that  the  fundamental  and  central  fact 
shall  appear  in  full  light. 

The  Christian  faith  could  not  isolate  and 
separate  the  person  of  Christ  and  the  redemptive 
work  of  the  Savior;  it  is  by  what  Christ  has 
done  for  me  that  I  know  what  he  is  to  me ;  it  is 
through  the  fact  of  redemption  that  I  compre- 
hend the  person  of  the  Redeemer;  it  is  the  work 
which  reveals  to  me  the  Workman.  If  such  is 
the  experimental  affirmation  of  the  Christian 
faith  obedient  to  the  inspiration  and  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Gospel,  it  is  necessary  that  dogmatic 
science  should  follow  with  docility  the  indica- 
tions of  this  faith  and  conform  rigorously  to  the 
data  of  revelation.  "The  work  of  Christ  is  his 
person  in  action,  as  the  person  of  Christ  is  his 
work  in  power;"1  hence  christology  and  soteri- 
ology must  be  taken  in  their  inner  correlation  and 
in  their  living  and  fruitful  unity.  Christology 
finds  its  positive  sanction  and  its  constant  com- 
plement in  soteriology.  On  the  other  hand,  soteri- 
ology is  only  applied  christology,  developing 

'E.  SCH£RER,  La  critique  et  lafoi,  p.  37. 


224  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

and  realizing  its  content.  What  will  be,  con- 
sequently, the  course  followed  by  a  dogmatics 
faithful  to  the  positive  testimony  of  Christ  and 
to  the  piety  of  his  first  disciples  ?  The  first  and 
principal  object  of  its  inquiry  will  be  the  histori- 
cal personality  of  Christ  revealed  in  his  words 
and  in  his  work.  The  method  which  the  very 
nature  of  Christian  faith  imposes  upon  us  is  the 
regressive  method,  the  method  a  posteriori ',  start- 
ing from  the  positive  data  of  the  evangelical  his- 
tory and  the  spiritual  realities  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  in  order  to  reach  the  divine  source 
whence  flow  the  revelation  and  the  activity  of 
the  Savior.  Proceeding  thus,  dogmatics  only  re- 
produces the  experience  of  the  believer  in  the 
presence  of  the  person  and  work  of  Christ ;  it  en- 
deavors to  give  precise  language  and  complete 
expression  to  the  sentiment  which,  prior  to  any 
reflection  or  system,  draws  the  Christian  to  his 
Lord,  binds  him  to  his  person,  and  bends  him 
before  his  feet.  In  a  word,  the  faith  of  the  first 
witnesses  of  Christ  was  awakened  in  their  spirits 
by  the  contemplation  of  the  Lord,  by  association 
with  his  spirit,  by  communion  with  his  life  :  "  Lord 
to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of 
eternal  life  and  we  have  believed  and  have  known 
that  thou  art  the  Holy  One  of  God."1  Such  is 
the  spontaneous  cry  of  their  hearts  in  the  pres- 

*John  6  : 68,  69. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  22$ 

ence  of  the  great  and  striking  revelation  of  God 
in  Jesus  Christ ;  such  is  the  triumphant  affirma- 
tion of  their  experience  and  the  constant  burden 
of  their  testimony.  What  they  have  heard,  what 
they  have  seen  with  their  eyes,  what  their  hands 
have  touched,  that  is  what  they  have  announced  ;x 
and  if  their  word  has  found  echo,  if  their  minis- 
try has  not  been  sterile,  if  their  apostolic  activity 
continues  through  all  the  ages  and  over  the  most 
different  lands,  bearing  blessed  and  beneficent 
fruits,  it  is  because  the  preaching  of  the  witnesses 
of  Christ  is  a  presentation  of  the  person  of  the 
Savior ;  it  is  because  they  have  placed  before  our 
eyes  the  image  of  the  crucified  Christ  ;2  it  is  be- 
cause each  convinced  spirit  is  conquered  by  the 
gentle  and  powerful  attraction  of  Him  who  went 
about  from  place  to  place  doing  good,  who,  re- 
viled, did  not  revile  again  ;  who,  when  he  suffered, 
did  not  threaten ;  who  was  the  good  shepherd 
giving  his  life  for  his  sheep.3 

Studied  in  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  analyzed 
into  its  essential  elements,  the  work  of  the  Re- 
deemer presents  itself  to  the  Christian  faith  under 
a  double  aspect.  The  religious  consciousness  of 
the  believer  comprehends  and  embraces  in  Jesus 
Christ  the  perfect  revelation  of  God  ;  the  moral 
consciousness  of  the  believer  recognizes  and  greets 
in  Jesus  Christ  the  perfect  manifestation  of  man. 

1 1  John  I:  1-4.         "Gal.  3:1.         »  John  10  :  Il-If. 


226  AN  IN  TROD  UCTION  TO 

By  him  and  in  him  we  apprehend  by  the  most 
decisive  demonstrations,  by  direct  and  immedi- 
ate experience,  what  God  is  for  us  and  what  we 
are  for  God.  These  two  sides  of  the  soteriologi- 
cal  problem  correspond  to  what  the  old  dogmatics 
called  the  prophetic  and  sacerdotal  office  of 
Christ.  Finally,  far  from  sacrificing  the  royalty 
of  the  Lord,  we  establish  it  upon  a  foundation 
as  broad  as  it  is  solid.  To  analyze  the  two  sides 
of  the  work  of  Christ  is  to  explain  in  what  sense 
he  is  our  Lord,  since  his  spiritual  royalty  mani- 
fests itself  and  legitimizes  itself  to  our  conscious- 
ness by  the  divine  truth  which  has  awakened  us, 
and  by  the  divine  light  which  he  has  communi- 
cated to  us. 

The  revelation  of  the  person  of  Christ  and 
the  development  of  his  work  was  consummated  in 
the  sacrifice  of  his  life.  The  death  of  the  Savior, 
the  key  to  which  he  gives  in  the  act  of  the  Last 
Supper  celebrated  with  his  disciples,  is  at  once 
the  crowning  point  of  the  worldly  activity  of 
Jesus  and  the  summit  of  his  moral  and  religious 
consciousness.  In  this  sacrifice  of  himself  one 
may  comprehend  with  perfect  clearness  the  inner 
and  profound  harmony  which  rules  between  the 
message  and  the  person  of  Christ.  In  his  eyes, 
his  death  was  brought  about  by  events  and  pre- 
dicted by  the  prophets  only  because  it  had  been 
willed  by  God,  and  it  had  been  willed  by  God 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  227 

* because  it  was  to  enter  as  a  positive  and  integral 
•  element  into  the  redemptive  work  of  the  Savior. 
Transforming  by  the  power  of  his  faith  the  brutal 
fact  into  a  moral  act,  Jesus  made  the  moment  of 
his  defeat  the  instrument  of  his  victory  ;  he  gave 
himself,  because,  obedient  to  the  divine  will  and 
trusting  in  the  love  of  his  Father,  fie  felt  that  by 
his  death  he  would  give  himself  more  perfectly 
and  completely : 

The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 

to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many I 

lay  down  my  life  for  my  sheep No  one  taketh  it  away 

from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down  myself Take  ye,  this  is 

my  body,  this  is  my  blood  of  the  covenant,  which  is  shed 
for  many.1 

However,  faith  does  not  confine  itself  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  worldly  ministry  and  to 
the  historical  testimony  of  Christ ;  obedient  to 
the  religious  testimony  which  solicits  it,  it  dis- 
covers, in  the  revelation  of  which  the  person  and 
the  work  of  the  Savior  are  the  center  and  object, 
a  series  of  postulates  assurance  of  which  is  in- 
tegral with  its  very  experience  and  bases  itself 
upon  the  positive  affirmations  of  the  religious 
consciousness.  These  postulates  pertain  at  once 
to  the  destiny  of  the  work  of  Christ  in  the  future 
and  to  the  origin  of  the  person  of  Christ  in  the 
past. 

'Mark  10  :4S;  Matt.  20 :  48 ;  John  10:15,  18;  Mark  14: 
22,  24. 


228  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

On  one  hand,  in  a  word,  he  who  has  found  in 
Jesus  Christ  the  God  with  whom  he  is  in  com- 
munion, he  who  has  found  pardon  for  his  sins 
in  this  communion  with  God,  has  found  life  and 
salvation;  he  is  assured  that  the  light  which 
raises  us  above  the  world  and  delivers  us  from 
the  world  does  not  come  from  the  world.  The 
experience  of  the  saving  power  of  Christ  proves 
to  the  believer  that  the  Head  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  and  the  author  of  redemption  could  not 
have  been  the  prey  of  death.  The  apparent  de- 
feat of  Christ  upon  the  cross  was  not  an  annihila- 
tion, but  rather  an  elevation  into  an  activity  more 
vast  and  more  intense  than  his  earthly  ministry. 
The  Christian  spirit  subscribes  without  reserva- 
tion to  that  word  of  the  Apocalypse :  "  I  am 
the  first  and  the  last,  and  the  living  one  ;  and  I 
was  dead  and  behold  I  am  alive  forever  more  and 
I  have  the  keys  of  death  and  of  Hades."1  We 
know  that  "Christ,  being  raised  from  the  dead, 
dieth  no  more ;  death  no  more  hath  dominion 
over  him.  For  the  death  that  he  died,  he  died 
unto  sin  once  :  but  the  life  that  he  liveth,  he 
liveth  unto  God." a  That  life  unto  God,  £f/  TQ 
0eq>,  is  a  life  of  salvation  and  blessing,  of  the  king- 
dom of  believers  founded  by  him.  Faith  in  a 
living  and  glorified  Lord  is  not  for  us  a  theologi- 
cal corollary  nor  the  mythological  expression  of 

1 1  :  1 8.        *  Rom.  6:9,  10. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  229 

an  idea  ;  it  is  the  direct  affirmation  of  our  experi- 
ence founded  upon  the  Gospel.  On  the  other 
hand,  evangelical  faith  affirms  with  a  certitude 
none  the  less  absolute  that  the  divine  life  in- 
carnated in  Jesus  Christ  and  communicated  by 
him  to  humanity  proceeds  from  a  divine  source, 
which  is  the  pure  emanation  of  a  power  whose 
final  cause  and  secret  we  cannot  find  in  ourselves. 
That  is  the  imperious  postulate  of  the  Christian 
faith  which  must  impute  to  the  sovereign  and  all- 
powerful  grace  of  the  heavenly  Father  the  gift 
that  he  has  made  to  us  in  the  person  of  his  only 
Son.  The  appearance  of  the  originator  and  dis- 
penser of  divine  light  implies  and  necessarily 
presupposes  a  special  manifestation  of  God,  a 
creative  and  sanctifying  intervention  of  his  Spirit, 
which  in  the  midst  of  humanity  has  created  a  new 
personality,  breaking  the  bonds  of  sin  and  inau- 
gurating upon  the  earth  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
Does  this  exhaust  the  content  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  formed  by  the  Gospel  and  placed 
in  the  presence  of  the  person  and  the  work  of 
Christ?  I  think  not ;  we  have  yet  another  step 
to  take.  The  divine  love,  as  the  center  of  the 
life  of  the  Savior,  illuminated  by  the  splendor 
of  which  the  cross  of  Calvary  becomes  the 
throne  of  glory  of  the  Son  of  God — this  love 
transfigures  all  things  in  the  eyes  of  the  Christian 
faith  ;  it  embraces  and  dominates  all  ages.  The 


230  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

first  word  of  creation  and  the  ultimate  solution 
of  history,  it  shows  itself  the  inspiring  and  con- 
trolling thought  of  humanity  and  of  the  universe. 
It  is  by  establishing  ourselves  upon  the  testimony 
and  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ  that  we  dare  to 
believe  that  the  kingdom  established  by  the 
Savior  has  been  the  chief  object  of  the  divine 
love  and  the  goal  of  eternal  wisdom  ;  that  the 
economy  of  nature  is  the  handmaiden  of  the 
economy  of  grace  ;  that  the  appearance  of  Christ 
gives  to  us  not  only  the  key  to  the  destiny  of 
humanity,  but  the  last  word  of  the  religious  ex- 
planation of  the  world. 

This  is  a  rough  sketch  of  the  program  of 
christology  and  soteriology  based  by  Protestant 
dogmatics  upon  the  experimental  foundation  of 
salvation  and  referred  back  to  the  higher  syn- 
thesis which  the  Gospel  furnishes  to  us.  With- 
out doubt  this  regressive  and  upward  course  of 
theological  thought  which,  following  the  devel- 
opment of  the  Christian  faith,  seeks  its  center  of 
gravity  in  the  historical  facts  of  revelation  and 
in  the  indisputable  experiences  of  consciousness, 
this  experimental  procedure  of  Protestant  dog- 
matics, at  once  historical  and  psychological,  is 
the  exact  antipode  of  the  process  adopted  and 
practiced  by  the  traditional  orthodoxy  which 
proceeds  a  priori,  takes  its  point  of  departure 
from  the  Trinity,  and  does  not  descend  to  the 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  231 

positive  realities  of  the  life  and  work  of  the 
Savior  until  it  has  soared  in  the  limitless  space 
of  a  metaphysics  charged  with  clouds  and  full  of 
dangers.  But  if  the  method  to  which  we  invite 
the  reader  departs  from  the  rugged  and  thorny 
paths  of  our  old  theology,  it  rejoins  the  royal 
and  straight  road  which  the  Gospel  traces  for  us 
and  the  general  direction  and  principal  stages 
of  which  our  Reformers  discovered  and  indicated 
with  remarkable  clearness.  To  cause  dogma  to 
spring  from  the  religious  and  ethical  interest 
which  has  been  its  generative  and  directing  prin- 
ciple, instead  of  sustaining  it  painfully  by  the 
aid  of  facts  borrowed  from  Greek  philosophy  or 
from  natural  theology;  to  attach  christology  to 
soteriology  by  the  bond  of  a  living  unity  and 
perfect  reciprocity;  to  establish  the  unique  dig- 
nity, the  sovereign  authority,  the  divine  value  of 
the  person  of  Christ,  not  upon  the  shifting  sands 
of  speculation  or  reveries  beyond  all  control,  but 
upon  the  solid  base  of  the  redemptive  work 
realized  by  the  life  and  the  death  of  the  Savior ; 
to  state  and  solve  thus  the  christological  prob- 
lem— this  is  at  once  to  realize  the  authentic 
thought  of  the  sacred  writers  and  to  bring  con- 
temporary theology  back  to  the  religious  prin- 
ciple of  the  Reformation  and  to  the  tradition 
which  it  inaugurated  with  a  piety  as  great  as  its 
independence. 


232  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

2.  Thus  also  will  be  rendered  to  theology 
religious  and  practical  understanding  in  all  parts 
of  the  system  of  Protestant  dogmatics,  the  scien- 
tific expression  of  the  Christian  faith. 

In  a  word,  christology,  thus  understood, 
gives  us  at  once  the  key  to  theology  taken  in  its 
limited  sense,  that  is,  the  doctrine  of  the  exist- 
ence and  the  attributes  of  God. 

The  doctrine  of  God,  elaborated  by  the 
schools  of  Protestant  orthodoxy,  is  far  from  be- 
ing the  organic  fruit  of  the  religious  development 
which  issued  from  the  Reformation ;  it  is  rather 
a  return  to  the  scholastic  tradition  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  in  a  whole  series  of  questions  it  is  a 
departure  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  Reform- 
ers, which,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  the  point  of  view 
of  the  Gospel. 

The  theology  of  the  scholastic  doctors  is  an 
attempt  at  a  synthesis  between  the  data  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  and  materials  borrowed 
from  Greek  philosophy,  notably  from  Neopla- 
tonism  which,  through  the  medium  of  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite  and  of  Scotus  Erigena,  exercised 
an  influence  as  wide  as  it  was  profound  upon  the 
theological  and  philosophical  speculation  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Doubtless  the  theories  of  our  old 
theologians  as  to  the  Absolute  —  a  pale  phantom, 
an  ultimate  abstraction,  which  escapes  thought 
and  is  above  Being  itself,  the  nameless  sub- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  233 

stratum  of  the  universal  essence  —  these  most 
adventuresome  and  most  sterile  theories  never  suc- 
ceeded in  breaking  completely  the  thread  which 
attaches  the  notion  of  God  to  the  Gospel,  but  the 
living  conception  of  the  heavenly  Father,  of  the 
God  of  holiness  and  of  love,  vanishes  more  and 
more,  and  the  terminology,  learnedly  compli- 
cated in  folios  and  dogmatic  manuals,  instead  of 
reproducing  the  divine  truth  in  its  characters  of 
simplicity  and  depth,  of  sobriety  and  exultation, 
ends  in  obscuring  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel  and 
substituting  the  quarrels  and  quibbles  of  the 
school  for  the  word  of  Christ  and  his  disciples. 
As  against  these  errors,  one  could  not  recall 
with  too  much  emphasis  that  the  God  the  reli- 
gious apprehension  of  whom  Protestant  dog- 
matics attempts  to  formulate  scientifically  is  the 
God  of  the  Gospel,  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  The  particular  task  of  theology,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  doubtful ;  it  must  draw  its  inspi- 
ration from  thetestimony  of  Jesus  and  his  apostles  ; 
the  faith  which  dogmatics  attempts  to  translate 
must  be  the  fruit  of  the  work  of  Christ,  the 
echo  of  his  word,  the  prolonged  vibration  of  his 
consciousness.  Religious  knowledge  of  God  is 
not  acquired  by  the  discursive  method  of  theo- 
retical reflection,  nor  by  mystical  contemplation 
or  ecstasy  ;  it  is  an  act  of  faith  which  apprehends 
the  revelation  offered  by  God  himself.  Religious 


•234  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

knowledge  of  God  is  the  experience  of  the  living 
activity  of  God.  To  know  God  is  to  trust  his 
grace,  adore  his  holiness,  experience  his  blessing 
and  his  mercy,  to  abandon  oneself  to  his  power, 
to  his  wisdom  and  love.  This  knowledge  is  a 
possession,  the  acceptance  of  a  divine  gift,  the 
experience  of  a  new  life  which  proceeds  from 
above,  and  which  is  nothing  other  than  pardon, 
peace,  righteousness,  strength,  joy.  This  knowl- 
edge, which  is  a  life,  is,  on  that  account,  a  light ; 
it  extends  to  that  which  we  need  to  know,  to  the 
purposes  of  God  with  regard  to  us,  to  his  thoughts 
of  unchangeable  justice  and  eternal  love.  That, 
in  a  word,  is  what  it  is  important  for  us  to  know  ; 
there  is  the  proper  domain  of  faith.  Faith  does 
not  inquire  what  God  is  in  himself  in  the  inac- 
cessible depths  of  his  being  ;  it  asks  what  God 
would  be  for  us  ;  it  praises  his  providential  dis- 
pensations toward  us ;  it  rejoices  and  returns 
thanks  for  his  wisdom  and  his  power,  for  his  justice 
and  his  love  ;  it  is  the  true  cult,  the  \arpeia  \o- 
<yiicr)  (Rom.  12  :  i),  the  reasonable  worship  which 
honors  God  as  he  would  be  honored.  Now,  the 
christocentric  principle,  the  consistent  application 
of  which  we  demand  for  all  Christian  dogmatics, 
teaches  us  that  the  only  way  to  the  attainment  of 
this  worship,  this  Christian  knowledge  of  God, 
this  living  faith  in  the  heavenly  Father,  is  Jesus 
Christ.  He  has  done  more  than  to  announce  to 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  235 

us  the  God  of  love  and  holiness  ;  he  has  revealed 
him  to  us  in  his  person,  in  his  life,  in  his  ministry 
of  mercy,  in  his  sacrifice  upon  Calvary.  Knowl- 
edge of  God  resolves  itself  for  the  Christian  into 
communion  with  the  Father,  to  whom  the  Son, our 
Lord  and  our  brother,  leads  us  ;  that  is  the  ex- 
perimental affirmation  of  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness, the  unchangeable  thesis  of  the  christocen- 
tric  doctrine. 

This  is  also  the  religious  inspiration  of  the 
Reformation  and  the  core  of  its  theology.  Let  us 
recall  the  beginning  of  the  great  Catechism  of 
Luther  : 

That  is  God,  and  is  called  God  because  of  the  bounty 
and  the  power  from  which  you  may  expect  all  good  things 
and  to  which  you  may  have  recourse  in  all  misfortunes  and 
dangers,  so  that  to  have  this  God  is  nothing  else  than  to 
believe  in  him  with  all  the  heart,  and  to  place  one's  entire 
confidence  in  him.1 

Says  Calvin  : 

Those  who  aspire  to  decide  this  question,  namely,  what 
God  is  (quid  sit  Deus),  only  indulge  in  frivolous  specula- 
tion, for  it  is  expedient  for  us  rather  to  know  of  what  quali- 
ty he  is  (gualis  sit),  and  what  is  suitable  to  his  nature. 
....  We  have  to  note  that  we  are  invited  to  a  knowledge 
of  God,  not  of  the  kind,  as  many  imagine,  that  flies 
to  the  mind  only  in  speculations,  but  that  which  has 
proper  firmness  and  produces  its  fruit,  that  is,  when  it 
takes  possession  of  us  quietly  and  becomes  rooted  in  our 
hearts.  For  God  is  manifested  to  us  by  his  virtues,  and 

1  Catech.  major,  I,  §§  1,2. 


236  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

when  we  feel  their  force  and  vigor  in  us,  and  enjoy  the 
goods  which  come  from  them,  there  is  reason  enough  that 
we  should  be  touched  to  the  quick  by  such  an  apprehension 
rather  than  imagining  a  God  far  from  us,  and  who  does  not 
make  himself  felt  by  effective  force.  From  this  we  have  to 
conclude  that  the  right  way  to  seek  God,  and  the  better 
method  that  we  may  make  our  own,  is  not  to  indulge  in  a 
curiosity  very  bold  in  its  inquiry  as  to  God's  majesty,  which 
we  should  adore  rather  than  probe  too  curiously,  but  to 
contemplate  it  in  his  works,  by  which  he  has  brought  him- 
self near  and  made  himself  familiar  to  us,  and  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  communicates  himself  to  us When 

finally  the  wisdom  of  God  was  manifested  in  the  flesh,  it 
declared  to  us  openly  all  of  God  that  can  enter  into  the 
human  spirit,  and  all  that  the  human  spirit  can  think  about 
God.  Because  we  have  Jesus  Christ,  the  Sun  of  righteous- 
ness, shining  upon  us,  he  gives  to  us  the  perfect  light  of  the 
truth  of  his  Father,  as  at  noonday ;  for  it  could  not  appear 
at  all  before  he  disclosed  it,  and  he  did  not  in  any  manner 
obscure  it.  For  surely  the  apostle  did  not  wish  to  signify 
a  vulgar  thing  when  he  said  that  God  had  spoken  to  the 
fathers  by  his  prophets  in  divers  portions  and  in  divers 
manners ;  but  in  these  last  days  he  has  spoken  to  us  by  his 

beloved  Son  (Heb.  i  :   1,2) If  we  would  find  the 

paternal  mercy  of  God  and  his  benevolence  toward  us,  we 
must  turn  our  eyes  to  Christ,  in  whom  alone  reposes  the 
good  will  of  the  Father  (Matt.  3  :  17).  If  we  would  seek 
salvation,  life,  and  immortality,  we  must  not  go  elsewhere, 
for  he  alone  is  the  fountain  of  life,  the  door  of  salvation, 
and  the  heir  of  the  heavenly  kingdom.1 

These  citations,  which  it  would  be  easy  to  mul- 
tiply, suffice  to  show  that  in  spite  of  their  incon- 

*Christian  Institution,  I,  2,  2 ;  5,  9 ;  IV,  8,  ^  ;  III,  2,  4,  5. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  237 

sistencies  and  hesitations  our  Reformers  had  the 
firm  and  clear  intention  of  borrowing  their  idea 
of  divinity  from  the  Christian  revelation.  Their 
God  is  not  a  metaphysical  image  derived  by  an 
effort  of  the  theoretical  reason  in  search  of  argu- 
ments drawn  from  I  know  not  what  natural  re- 
ligion ;  it  is  a  religious  reality  accessible  to  faith, 
a  power  in  the  spiritual  and  moral  life  perceived 
by  those  who  abandon  themselves  freely  to  its 
influence.  The  certitude  that  we  have  of  the  ex- 
istence and  activity  of  that  Being  who  at  the 
same  time  binds  us  and  frees  us,  condemns  us 
and  saves  us — that  certitude  is  produced  in  us  by 
the  positive  manifestation  of  a  new  life  which,  in 
the  midst  of  our  humanity,  legitimizes  itself  con- 
stantly to  our  consciousness  as  a  divine  life,  fully 
realized  in  Jesus  Christ.  He  it  is  who,  conquer- 
ing our  spirits  by  his  holiness  and  binding  them 
to  him  by  his  love,  has  awakened  in  the  pro- 
foundest  depths  of  our  being  an  infinite  trust  in  an 
all-powerful  goodness ;  it  is  he  who,  transform- 
ing by  his  obedience  and  his  devotion  all  the 
powers  of  evil  into  instruments  of  salvation,  of 
blessing,  and  of  victory,  remains  forever,  for  all 
his  believers,  the  living  proof  and  the  incontesta- 
ble witness,  I  will  not  say  of  the  existence  of  a 
God  merely,  but  of  the  "  Good  Will "  of  a  Father. 
Thus  the  Christ,  opening  to  us  access  to  God, 
makes  us  triumph  over  sin  and  places  the  world 


238  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

beneath  our  feet.  In  translating  this  affirma- 
tion of  faith  into  the  language  of  dogmatics, 
we  hold  that  christology,  which  expounds  "  spe- 
cial theology,"  establishes  and  defines  at  the 
same  time  a  cosmology:  God  the  Savior  re- 
veals and  guarantees  unto  us  the  Creator  and 
Providence. 

-"3.  The  content  of  our  faith  in  God  as  Crea- 
tor  does  not  belong  to  the  sphere  of  so-called 
natural  religion,  and  the  foundation  of  that  faith 
does  not  rest  upon  rational  arguments,  upon 
scientific  theses,  or  speculative  theories.  If  I  re- 
peat with  the  old  symbol,  "  I  believe  in  God,  the 
Almighty,  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth,"  it  is 
because  I  rest  upon  the  testimony  and  work  of 
Christ ;  I  believe  that  I  have  been  called  into 
existence  by  a  sovereign  Will  which  is  at  once 
perfect  wisdom  and  infinite  love ;  it  is  because  I 
have  the  inner  and  unshakable  conviction  that 
the  universe  of  which  I  myself  am  only  an  atom 
appears  in  its  immensity  and  obeys  in  its  course 
the  God  whom  Jesus  has  taught  me  to  call  my 
Father ;  it  is  because  I  know  that  this  universe 
itself  has  a  higher  meaning  and  a  divine  goal, 
which  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  founded  by 
Jesus  Christ  and  presented  in  his  person ;  it  is 
because  the  divinely  revealed  knowledge  of  the 
ultimate  end  of  nature  and  of  history  guarantees 
to  me  the  divine  origin  both  of  history  and  of 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  239 

nature.  Faith  in  God  the  Creator  is  not  a  scien- 
tific theorem ;  it  is  a  moral  certitude,  an  affirma- 
tion of  the  conscience,  ^fiducia  cordis  ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  involved  in  faith  in  the  heavenly  Father ; 
it  partakes  of  the  inner  nature  of  the  Christian 
and  Protestant  faith,  which  is  essentially  confi- 
dence, obedience,  surrender.  The  scientific  ex- 
pression of  the  religious  faith  in  God  as  Creator, 
the  Christian  dogma  of  creation,  is  therefore 
something  other  than  an  axiom  of  spiritualistic 
philosophy,  one  of  the  articuli  mixti  accessible  as 
such  to  the  light  of  natural  reason  ;  it  belongs  to 
the  organism  of  Protestant  dogmatics ;  it  consti- 
tutes one  of  its  integral  elements ;  it  is  likewise 
only  one  of  the  sides  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
God.  It  is  thus  that  our' Reformers  understood 
it.  Luther,  in  his  catechisms  and  sermons,  Me- 
lancthon,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Loci,  have 
emphasized  the  religious  root  of  the  dogma  of 
creation  and  have  shown  its  essentially  Christian 
character.  One  finds  in  the  work  of  Zwingli  and 
of  Calvin  the  indications  which,  though  less  clear 
and  characteristic,  still  point  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, and  the  old  theologians  of  the  orthodox 
age  themselves  possessed  a  confused  sentiment 
of  the  truth  affirmed  with  so  great  vigor  and 
clearness  by  the  spiritual  fathers  of  our  church. 
,On  this  point,  as  upon  the  others,  christocentric 
theology  is  only  a  return  to  the  primitive  point 


240  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

of  view  and  to  the  original  and  authentic  inspira- 
tion of  the  Reformation. 

4.  What  has  been  said  of  the  doctrine  of 
creation  is  applicable  also  to  the  doctrine  of 
Providence.  To  tell  the  truth,  faith  in  Provi- 
dence is  even  more  essential  to  the  Christian 
consciousness.  It  has  a  more  immediate  charac- 
ter and,  if  I  may  so  say,  a  more  elementary  and 
intimate  character  than  faith  in  God  as  a  crea- 
tor; or,  rather,  these  two  are  inseparable;  both 
are  involved  in  one  act,  a  freely  affirmed  act  of 
dependence,  an  act  of  confidence  and  surrender 
to  a  Will  of  perfect  wisdom  and  eternal  love. 
The  Christian  faith  in  Providence  is  faith  in  the 
fatherhood  of  the  God  of  Jesus  Christ. 

This  fact,  this  truth  which  no  Christian  should 
seriously  question,  traces  for  science  the  pro- 
gram which  it  should  follow  in  establishing  and 
developing  the  dogma ;  it  indicates  clearly  to  it 
the  foundation  upon  which  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  Providence  should  rest.  It  is  necessary  that 
the  rock  upon  which  our  Christian  experience 
abides  should  be  the  immovable  foundation  of 
our  theological  thought,  since  the  theologian  has 
no  other  mission  than  to  formulate  scientifically 
that  experience. 

Upon  what  grounds  do  we  believe  in  divine 
Providence?  Is  that  faith  the  fruit  of  our 
natural  experience?  Does  it  spring  spontane- 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  2  4 1 

ously  from  our  spirits  in  the  presence  of  the 
wonders  of  creation?  Is  it  the  spectacle  of 
nature  which,  by  the  double  infinity  which  sur- 
rounds us,  the  infinitely  great  and  the  infinitely 
small,  causes  the  cry  of  confidence  and  of  grati- 
tude to  rise  from  our  hearts  to  our  lips,  a  homage 
of  instinct  rendered  to  the  activity  of  Provi- 
dence ?  Verily,  "The  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handi- 
work "  (Ps.  19:2);  but  if  nature  speaks  to  us  a 
sweet  and  wonderful  language.it  also  has  fright- 
ful silences  and  implacable  cruelties.  When  the 
blind  forces  of  the  unchained  elements  crush  be- 
neath their  pitiless  blows  the  human  atom  lost  in 
immensity,  when  the  universe  takes  up  arms  to 
break  the  bruised  reed,  which  a  zephyr  or  a 
drop  of  water  could  destroy,  when  death  under  a 
thousand  equally  grievous  forms  throws  its  sinis- 
ter shadow  across  the  horizon  of  our  life  and  our 
peace,  then  does  the  voice  of  nature  in  our  ears 
and  hearts  sound  like  a  hymn  of  praise  to  Provi- 
dence ? 

Or  shall  we  search  in  history  for  proof  of  the  l 
existence   and  activity  of  a  perfect  Will,  a  su-    \ 
preme  Power  at  the  service  of  wisdom  and  good-    j 
ness  ?     It  is  true  that  in  the  great  arena  where 
the  crimes  and    the  virtues  of   humanity  battle 
together,   the    attentive    and    penetrating     eye 
of  the  observer  can   sometimes  discover   some 


242  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

plan,  a  design  or  thought  which  seems  to  domi- 
nate the  conflict  or  even  to  inspire  the  combat- 
ants ;  it  is  true  that  one  frequently  sees  the  good 
triumph  over  the  evil,  vice  unmasked  and  pun- 
ished, honesty  recompensed  and  crowned;  but 
by  the  side  of  these  happy  and  encouraging 
experiences  how  many  bitter  disillusions ;  how 
many  humiliating,  bewildering,  or  revolting  de- 
feats; how  many  victories  which  insult  our  most 
sacred  feelings ;  how  many  fatal  obstacles  or 
cruel  inflictions  are  directed  by  brutal  facts 
against  our  most  cherished  hopes,  against  our 
faith  in  right,  truth,  and  justice  ! 

Is  it  necessary  to  take  refuge  in  the  inacces- 
s  sible  sanctuary  of  the  conscience  ?  Shall  we 
make  of  Providence  the  postulate  of  a  moral 
order  assurance  of  which  is  immanent  in  practi- 
cal reason  and  is  involved  in  the  categorical  im- 
perative and  the  law  of  duty  ?  Noble  and  touch- 
ing effort  of  the  soul  in  love  with  the  ideal, 
thirsting  for  righteousness  and  virtue  !  But  is  it 
not  true  that  this  law  which  occasions  and  estab- 
lishes our  dignity  also  accuses  and  condemns 
us  ?  If  it  is  our  glory,  it  is  also  our  torment,  for 
it  is  not  in  our  conscience  that  we  may  read,  in 
distinct  and  luminous  characters,  the  irrefragable 
assurance  that  if  God  rules  he  makes  all  things 
work  together  for  our  good.  Neither  the  con- 
templation of  nature, nor  the  spectacle  of  history, 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  243 

nor  the  testimony  of  our  conscience,  gives  to  our 
faith  the  foundation  it  needs. 

"We  burn  with  the  desire  to  find  firm  ground 
and  a  final  abiding  foundation  upon  which  to 
build  a  tower  that  will  raise  us  to  the  infinite. 
But  our  foundation  crumbles,  and  an  abyss 
opens  in  the  earth  beneath."1 

"We  know  that  all  things  work  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  God.  If  God  is  for  us, 
who  is  against  us  ?  He  who  spared  not  his  own 
son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall 
he  not  also  with  him  freely  give  us  all  things  ?" 
(Rom.  8:28,  31,  32).  Here  is  the  Christian 
confession  of  faith  in  Providence ;  this  is  the 
luminous  and  simple  formula  which  expresses 
completely  the  content  and  the  proof  of  that 
faith.  The  Christian  faith  in  Providence  is  the 
confidence  in  an  eternal  love  which  has  realized/ 
its  economy  of  grace  in  Jesus  Christ.  This  con- 
ception of  divine  economy  is  only  another  form 
of  the  Christian  idea  of  Providence.  Divine 
economy,  that  is  to  say,  the  precise  plan,  the 
vigilant  solicitude,  the  benevolent  and  loving 
guidance  of  the  Father  nurturing  his  own,  sustain- 
ing, saving  his  children — this  economy  of  grace 
is  revealed,  accomplished,  guaranteed  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Expressed  in  the  language  of  science, 
and  formulated  in  dogma,  this  faith  gives  birth  } 

'PASCAL,  Pensies,  ed.  Havet,  Vol.  II  (1866),  p.  6. 


244  AN  INTRODUCTION   TO 

to  a  theodicy;  it  establishes  the  religious  notion 
of  miracle ;  it  gives  to  the  problem  of  evil  the 
only  solution  of  which  it  is  susceptible,  a  practi- 
cal solution  which  does  not  solve  its  mysteries, 
but  which  claims  our  sanction  by  the  certitude 
of  a  love  greater  than  the  world  and  stronger 
than  sin,  sorrow,  and  death.  Such  is  the  point  of 
view  of  our  Reformers,  who  only  took  up  and 
applied  the  word  of  the  great  apostle  (Rom.  8: 
32),  since  they  founded  faith  in  divine  Provi- 
dence upon  the  fact  of  our  redemption  and  sal- 
»vation.  In  their  eyes,  belief  in  the  Providence 
/of  the  heavenly  Father  is,  indeed,  as  a  modern 
/  theologian  has  said,  the  Christian  conception  of 
/  the  world  in  a  nutshell.1  How  far  we  are  from 
orthodox  scholasticism  and  the  fantasies  of  mod- 
ern speculation"!  "Our  Father  which  art  in 
heaven" — that  prayer  is  the  Christian's  affirma- 
tion of  his  faith  in  Providence,  and  Protestant 
theology  goes  far  astray  if  it  draws  the  elements 
of  its  dogma  from  any  other  source.  "  He  who 
hath  seen  me,"  said  the  Christ,  "hath  seen  the 
Father"  (John  14  19).  It  is  the  Son  who  has  re- 
vealed to  us  God,  our  God. 

5.  He  also  reveals  to  us  man.  As  we  go 
from  christology  to  theology,  in  the  proper  sense 
and  restriction  of  that  term,  we  also  ask  of  chris- 
tology the  solution  of  the  problem  stated  by  re- 
ligious and  Christian  anthropology. 
'Ritschl. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  245 

What,  in  a  word,  is  the  object  and  what  are 
the  limits  of  the  anthropological  doctrine  in  the 
organism  of  Protestant  dogmatics  ?  Traditional 
theology  answers  this  question  either  by  bor- 
rowing from  psychology  a  series  of  auxiliary 
theses  or  by  drawing  from  the  documents  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  the  indications  which 
it  transforms  into  dogmatic  rules  and  to  which  it 
gives  normative  authority.  The  solution  thus  ob- 
tained errs  by  its  lack  of  clearness  and  unity, 
which  seriously  compromises  its  solidity.  By 
permitting  excursions  into  domains  which  do  not 
belong  to  the  evangelical  revelation  and  which 
do  not  fall  under  the  cognizance  of  the  Christian  \ 
consciousness,  popular  orthodoxy  has  introduced  \ 
into  ecclesiasticaTdogma  foreign  elements  which  I 
hasten  its  ruin  and  dissolution.  With  these  prob-  ^ 
lems,  which  set  out  with  a  false  idea  of  the  very 
conditions  of  knowledge,  like  the  problem  of  the 
origin  of  souls,  the  old  theology  mingled  ques- 
tions which,  while  not  deprived  of  religious  in- 
terest, were  formulated  in  a  faulty  manner  and 
rested  upon  ground  poorly  chosen.  Such  are, 
for  example,  the  two  notions  of  the  status  integri- 
tatis  and  of  the  status  corruptions,  the  primitive 
state  of  humanity  and  the  fall  with  its  conse- 
quences. The  ancient  doctrine  bears  upon  these 
two  notions  and  centers  its  religious  affirmations 
in  them. 


246  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Applied  to  the  anthropological  dogma,  the 
christocentric  principle  which  we  have  tried  to 
expound  has  at  once  a  critical  and  negative 
value.  It  excludes  from  the  system  of  Christian 
dogmatics  all  theses  borrowed  from  ethnog- 
raphy and  from  psychological  and  physiological 
sciences.  In  the  second  place,  it  disengages 
from  the  conception  of  the  status  integritatis  the 
religious  and  .moral  content  which  is  contained 
in  it,  but  which  is  smothered  and  obscured  by 
orthodox  scholasticism.  The  latter,  in  a  word, 
not  contented  with  establishing  the  strictly  his- 
torical character  of  the  tradition  of  Genesis,  has 
singularly  overreached  the  limits  within  which 
the  ancient  narrative  confines  itself;  it  conceals, 
also,  insoluble  contradictions  which  criticism 
has  many  times  sifted  out  and  which  do  not  re- 
sist any  serious  and  independent  analysis.  It 
finally  commits  the  error  of  shifting  attention 
away  from  the  real  problem  and  of  carrying  the 
faith  of  the  Christian  and  the  thought  of  the 
theologian  to  matters  which  only  very  indirectly 
interest  and  concern  the  religious  consciousness 
of  the  believer.  Brought  back  to  its  precise 
limits  and  placed  in  its  true  light,  the  question 
stated  by  Christian  anthropology  reduces  itself 
to  this:  What  is  the  conception  of  man  implied  / 
in  and  demanded  by  our  faith  in  Jesus  Christ? 
What  judgment  does  the  Gospel  yield  on  the 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  247 

nature,  the  origin,  and  the  end  of  man?  Where 
the  Gospel  is  silent,  we  are  not  authorized  to 
supplement  its  silence  by  borrowed  theses,  by 
scientific  hypotheses,  by  traditions  drawn  from 
the  history  of  religions,  or  by  speculations  issuing 
from  ancient  or  modern  philosophy.  That  is  to 
say,  we  should  not  force  into  the  circle  of  Chris- 
tian dogmas  a  chapter  on  the  primitive  nature  of 
man,  on  the  original  perfection  of  our  first  par- 
ents. For  the  fantastic  picture  which  orthodoxy 
has  drawn  of  Adam  and  Eve,  Protestant  dog- 
matics, inspired  by  the  Gospel,  substitutes  the 
Christian  idea  of  the  moral  aud  religious  des- 
tiny of  man,  revealed  and  realized  by  Jesus 
Christ. * 

The  religious  explanation  which  Jesus  offers 
as  to  our  destiny  furnishes  us  thus  the  solution 
of  the  antinomies  which  arise  in  our  minds  be- 
tween our  limited  nature  and  our  infinite  aspira- 
tions, between  the  bitterness  of  our  experiences 
under  the  law  of  sin  and  our  inextinguishable 
thirst  for  righteousness,  peace,  and  love.  In 
other  words,  if  we  search  in  the  Christian  reve- 
lation, in  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  his  work 
and  in  his  person,  for  the  correction  which  the 
popular  conception  of  status  integrilatis  demands, 
we  must  apply  the  same  principle  to  the  con- 
nected doctrine  of  the  status  corruptionis,  the  for- 

1  This  is  Wendt's  point  of  view. 


248  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

mula  by  which  ancient  theology  designated  the 
doctrine  of  sin. 

Traditional  orthodoxy  makes  the  account  of 
the  fall,  considered  as  a  real  history,  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  sin.  The  fall 
with  its  consequences  is  considered  by  our  an- 
cient theologians  as  the  counterpart  of  the  state 
of  innocence  in  which  the  hand  of  the  Creator 
placed  our  first  parent.  The  status  corruptionis 
has  for  its  natural  and  immediate  correlative  the 
justitia  originalis.  The  fall  is  nothing  other  than 
the  loss  of  that  original  righteousness;  the  mis- 
ery of  the  present  condition  of  man  is  deter- 
mined by  the  contrast  with  the  primitive  con- 
dition of  man;  the  abyss  into  which  he  has 
fallen  by  his  error  is  measured  by  the  height 
to  which  he  had  been  raised  by  the  Eternal. 
Consequently,  the  norm  of  moral  and  religious 
appreciation  which  the  traditional  doctrine  ap- 
plies to  sin  is  precisely  the  religious  and  moral 
ideal  which  is  expressed  in  the  notion  of  the 
justitia  originalis.  That  is  the  material  which 
orthodoxy  furnishes  to  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness in  order  to  consider  the  experimental  fact 
of  sin;  this  is  the  angle  under  which  it  would 
have  us  consider  the  moral  and  religious  evil  of 
humanity.  Furthermore,  the  work  of  salvation 
is  only  the  re-establishment  of  the  primitive 
relationship  between  the  Creator  and  Adam,  the 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  249 

reintegration  of  the  divine  image  changed  by 
the  disobedience  of  the  father  of  our  race.  The 
final  order  will  be  identical  with  the  primeval,  so 
that  the  second  Adam  has  only  regained  and 
given  back  to  humanity  the  titles  of  nobility 
which  the  first  Adam  lost  for  himself  and  for  his 
descendants.  The  entire  economy  of  salvation 
is  therefore  construed  from  the  point  of  view  of 
that  justitia  originalis,  which,  according  to  popu- 
lar orthodoxy,  is  the  first  and  the  last  word  of 
the  divine  purposes  for  humanity. 

If  the  christocentric  method  which  I  have 
tried  to  defend  breaks  with  this  theory,  it  is  by 
no  means  because  the  latter  leans  upon  the  his- 
toricity of  the  tradition  of  Genesis  ;  far  from  it. 
If  we  should  be  brought  by  irrefragable  arguments 
to  affirm  the  historical  character  of  the  ancient 
narrative,  we  should  none  the  less  refuse  to  give  to 
this  narrative  the  decisive  and  normative  value 
of  a  dogmatic  criterion,  calculated  to  govern  the 
affirmations  of  our  religious  consciousness  as  to 
sin.  In  a  word,  the  old  theology,  going  back  to 
the  state  of  the  primitive  innocence  of  man 
before  the  fall  in  order  to  determine  the  charac- 
teristics and  the  nature  of  sin,  places  itself  in  fact 
beyond  and  outside  of  the  Christian  revelation. 
It  erects  into  a  supreme  norm  an  ideal  which  has 
not  been  formed  under  the  power  of  the  Gospel ; 
it  brings  the  evangelical  revelation  down  to  the 


256  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

level  of  a  simple  complement  of  the  natural 
order.  Shall  I  say  more  ?  It  subordinates  the 
economy  of  grace  to  the  ecocomy  of  law  ;  it 
deprives  Christ  of  the  religious  hegemony  of 
humanity  to  confer  the  supreme  primacy  upon 
man  before  the  fall,  upon  Adam  still  in  posses- 
sion of  his  original  righteousness,  upon  the 
creature  in  the  state  of  innocence  and  happiness 
who  preceded  the  entrance  of  sin  into  the  world. 
As  against  this  point  of  view,  the  christo- 
centric  conception  seeks  in  the  Christian  revela- 
lation  the  only  law  governing  its  appreciation 
of  sin.  Without  doubt  sin  is  a  phenomenon 
encountered  outside  of  the  domain  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  in  this  regard  it  could  not  be  the  same 
object  of  divine  revelation.  But  if  sin  is  not  a 
revealed  reality,  it  is  a  fact  which  falls  under  the 
appreciation  of  the  Christian  revelation  or  of  the 
Gospel.  The  Gospel  has  not  created  this  object 
which  we  have  to  analyze,  but  it  has  made  us 
capable  of  measuring  its  extent  and  of  feeling  its 
profound  gravity.  In  other  words,  Protestant 
dogmatics  has  for  its  mission  the  definition  of 
the  consciousness  of  sin  which  Jesus  Christ  has 
brought  to  the  world.  The  Christian  idea  of  sin 
is  not  the  counterpart  of  the  picture  of  the 
justitia  originalis  conferred  upon  Adam  ;  it  is  the 
opposite  of  the  idea  of  the  sovereign  good 
realized  by  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  in  the  essentially 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  2  5 1 

Christian  sphere  that  we  are  to  find  the  key  to 
the  dogmatic  idea  of  sin  ;  only  in  the  light  of 
the  person  and  the  work  of  Christ,  upon  the 
sacred  soil  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  divine  revelation  in  the  second 
Adam,  shall  we  find  the  solid  base  of  operation, 
the  proper  point  of  observation,  the  true  norm  of 
appreciation,  the  formula  of  explanation  authentic 
and  conformable  to  the  exigencies  of  the  Chris- 
tian and  Protestant  consciousness.  The  analysis 
of  the  moral  and  religious  consciousness  of  sin, 
the  consciousness  formed  in  the  school  of  the 
evangelical  revelation,  and  finding  its  center  of 
gravity  in  the  religious  testimony  and  the 
redemptive  work  of  the  Savior  —  such  is  the  task 
of  christocentric  dogmatics  alone  in  harmony 
with  the  religious  interests  of  the  Protestant  con- 
sciousness. 

6.  When  once  in  possession  of  the  Christian 
idea  of  God  and  the  evangelical  doctrine  of  man 
and  of  the  world,  it  will  not  be  difficult  for  the 
dogmatician  to  set  forth  the  dogma  of  the  sub- 
jective realization  of  salvation  in  the  individual 
and  in  the  Christian  community.  Upon  this 
point  the  agreement  among  theologians  is 
less  doubtful  than  upon  the  method  to  be 
employed  in  formulating  scientifically  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  God  and  of  man.  It  is 
very  evident  that  in  order  to  determine  the 


252  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

Protestant  conceptions  of  justification  and  of 
sanctification,  of  the  church  and  of  the  sacra- 
ments, it  is  not  possible  to  cut  loose  from  chris- 
tology:  "The  manner  of  participating  in  the 
grace  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  fruits  which  it  brings 
to  us  and  the  effects  which  follow  it  .  .  .  .  , 
the  exterior  means  or  helps  which  God  uses  to 
invite  us  to  Jesus  Christ,  his  Son,  and  to  hold  us 
to  him"1 — these  vital  doctrines  of  the  Christian 
system  are  necessarily  dominated  by  the  christo- 
centric  point  of  view,  and  this  is  not  the  place  to 
insist  upon  the  bond  which  attaches  these  dogmas 
to  the  central  dogma  of  the  person  and  the  work 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Even  if  one  should  prefer  to 
introduce  the  systematic  exposition  of  these 
truths  into  what  some  eminent  theologians  have 
called  "the  economy  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"8  it 
would  always  be  necessary  to  show  that  that 
Spirit  is  precisely  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  the  inspir- 
ing soul  of  his  work,  the  divine  principle  of  his 
person.  Under  this  condition  alone,  the  doctrine 
of  the  appropriation  of  salvation  by  the  individu- 
al and  the  church,  withdrawing  from  the  domain 
of  abstract  ideas,  will  have  the  solidity  and  the 
consistency  which  the  historical  foundation  of 
the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  will  assure  to  it. 
The  church  and  the  sacraments,  in  a  word,  are 

1CALVIN,  Christian  Institution,  Books  III  and  IV. 
3  For  example,  Schweizer  and  Kahnis. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  253 

only  the  Gospel  in  operation,  the  promissio  gra- 
tiae  rendered  visible  and  communicated  to  faith, 
the  pictura  verbi,  whose  body  and  substance  are  in 
the  Savior,  the  corner-stone  of  his  church  and 
the  sovereign  dispenser  of  all  the  means  of 
grace. 

7.  Finally,  Christianity,  being  a  living  reli- 
gion and  having  reached  its  complete  development, 
proposes  to  give  to  its  adherents  the  key  to  the 
future  destinies  of  the  individual  and  of  humani- 
ty. Retained  within  the  limits  which  the  reve- 
lation of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  traces  for  it,  the 
Christian  consciousness  does  not  undertake  to 
build,  like  the  philosophical  doctrines,  a  rational 
theory  as  to  the  nature  or  immortality  of  the 
soul.  To  establish  by  reasoning  or  by  specula- 
tion the  belief  in  the  future  life  is  to  mistake  the 
proper  character  of  the  Christian  faith,  since  the 
latter  is  essentially  a  moral  act,  a  personal  con- 
viction, an  inner  decision  of  the  subject,  a  free 
gift  of  the  heart  whose  confidence  has  been 
awakened  and  gained  by  a  divine  factor,  by  the 
testimony  of  Christ,  or  rather  by  his  work  and 
his  entire  life.  Protestant  dogmatics,  the  inter- 
preter of  the  evangelical  faith,  limits  itself  to 
deducing  from  the  divine  fact  of  salvation  the 
religious  postulates  which  it  contains  with  refer- 
ence to  the  future  of  the  believer.  What  are  the 
assured  prospects  offered  to  faith  by  the  spiritual 


254  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

realities,  assurance  of  which  the  Christian  pos- 
sesses in  Jesus  Christ?  This  is  the  problem  which 
eschatology,  confined  to  its  true  task  and  con- 
ceived in  the  sense  of  a  christocentric  doctrine, 
places  before  the  theologian.  Thus  understood, 
the  Christian  faith,  hence  dogmatic  thought  also, 
guards  against  making  of  eternal  life  a  transcen- 
dental entity  separated  from  the  course  of  the 
present  life  and  confined  to  the  sphere  of  the 
hereafter ;  it  follows  the  guidance  of  the  sacred 
authors,  notably  the  teachings  of  the  Johannine 
preaching,  which  ignores  the  line  of  separation 
drawn  between  the  actual  realization  and  the 
future  development  of  the  divine  light.  Without 
doubt  the  kingdom  of  Christ  is  not  of  this  world, 
but  it  must  be  realized  in  this  world,  it  must  be 
organized  on  this  earth,  it  must  give  itself  a  con- 
crete and  positive  form  in  all  the  spheres  where 
the  Spirit  of  God  is  present  and  active.  The 
disciples  only  undertook  to  continue  and  develop 
the  thought  of  the  Master.  It  is  in  the  present 
economy  that  the  forces  of  the  future  economy 
manifest  and  extend  themselves.  The  present 
age,  6  alvv  o&ro<?,  does  not  merely  contain  the 
germs  of  the  future .  It  sees  them  already  ripen- 
ing, and  the  eternal  life  which  the  Son  of  God 
has  brought  to  the  world  is  more  than  a  glorious 
promise  ;  it  is  a  happy  and  triumphant  reality. 
Doubtless,  the  second  coming  of  Christ  will 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  255 

mark,  according  to  the  sacred  writers,  the  com- 
ing of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  ;  but  it  is  permis- 
sible and  necessary  to  translate  the  apostolic 
message  into  language  conformable  to  the  spiritu- 
al data  of  the  Gospel.  Thus  faith  assures  to 
itself,  in  the  progressive  coming  and  final  tri- 
umph of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  complete 
unfolding  of  the  divine  powers  as  yet  mixed 
with  earthly  alloy  and  stained  with  sin.  That 
will  merely  be  the  end  of  a  drama  which  is  tak- 
ing place  constantly  about  us  and  in  us  ;  it  will 
be  less  a  new  catastrophe  than  a  final  culmination 
prepared  long  before  and  toward  which  hence- 
forth all  the  paths  of  humanity  converge.  In 
other  words,  eschatology  is  only  the  prolongation 
of  soteriology,  and  soteriology  contains  eschat- 
ology within  itself ;  the  Spirit  of  God  is  con- 
tinually doing  the  work  which  traditional  ortho- 
doxy reserves  for  the  end  of  time,  and  the 
end  of  time  will  bring  a  grand  transformation 
only  because  it  will  assure  the  triumph  of  irvevfia.1 
Thus  soteriology  is  primarily  dominated  by  the 
eschatological  conception,  and  eschatology  di- 
rects itself  in  behalf  of  soteriological  interests. 
What  must  we  conclude?  That  there  is  no  place 
in  the  dogmatic  system  for  an  eschatological 
division  of  independent  importance  which  is  made 
co-ordinate  with  the  doctrine  of  salvation  and 
1  Spirit. 


256  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

which  is  added  as  a  new  piece  joined  to  the  body 
of  the  system.  It  is  the  fact  of  salvation  which 
must  occupy  the  royal  position  in  the  system, 
and  everything  that  we  are  allowed  to  affirm 
touching  the  future,  everything  that  revelation 
itself  unveils  to  us  or  helps  us  to  foresee,  flows 
from  the  parent  idea,  or  rather  from  the  genera- 
tive fact  of  salvation  from  sin  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

8.  This  salvation  decreed  by  the  wisdom  and 
the  love  of  the  heavenly  Father,  realized  in  the 
historical  work  of  the  Savior,  communicated  by 
the  inner  activity  of  the  Spirit,  finds  its  most  com- 
plete and  most  profound  dogmatic  expression  in 
the  trinitarian  formula  which  concludes  the  system 
of  Christian  dogmatics.  In  a  word,  he  commits 
a  great  error  who  assigns  to  the  dogma  of  the 
Trinity  a  position  at  the  beginning  of  the  doc- 
trinal construction  and  studies  it  independently 
of  christology  and  the  idea  of  the  church.  This 
error  is  common  to  all  of  our  early  theologians 
and  to  the  majority  of  contemporary  dogmati- 
cians.  It  proceeds  from  a  fatal  ignorance  of  the  true 
meaning  of  the  inner  character  of  the  Christian 
Trinity.  To  comprehend  the  meaning  and  value 
of  this  dogma  it  is  altogether  necessary  to  start 
out  from  the  redemptive  work  in  which  the  Son 
of  God  appears,  and  from  the  spiritual  regenera- 
tion in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  manifests  itself. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  257 

Here  is  the  religious  substance  of  the  Christian 
fact  which,  submitted  to  the  reflection  of  the 
theologian,  has  given  birth  to  the  trinitarian 
dogma.  This  dogma,  like  every  Christian  doc- 
trine truly  worthy  of  the  name,  has  its  root  in 
piety,  in  the  inner  religious  experience  of  the 
Christian  brought  into  contact  with  the  prior  and 
higher  facts  of  a  divine  manifestation  in  the  midst 
of  humanity.  In  Jesus  Christ  God  is  revealed  to 
us  as  our  Father,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  bears  wit- 
ness to  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of  God. 
The  union  of  God  with  humanity  in  Jesus  Christ 
and  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  God  manifesting  him- 
self in  Jesus  Christ  through  the  Holy  Spirit  — 
that  is  the  divine  revelation  affirmed  by  the 
Christian  consciousness  by  virtue  of  an  experience 
which  science  has  not  created,  which  it  can 
neither  demonstrate  nor  refute,  and  upon  which 
criticism  has  no  hold.  This  declaration  prescribes 
for  us  the  method  to  be  employed  in  formulating 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  indicates  to  us 
the  place  which  this  doctrine  occupies  in  the 
economy  of  the  Christian  system.  It  must  have 
its  point  of  departure,  not  in  the  divine  essence 
considered  in  itself,  but  in  the  data  of  revelation 
apprehended  by  faith ;  for  the  deductive  and  a 
priori  method,  here  as  elsewhere,  must  be  substi- 
tuted the  inductive  and  a  posteriori  method.  Every 
attempt  at  a  construction  of  this  dogma  which 


258  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

does  not  rest  upon  that  foundation  can  only  pre- 
sent a  philosophical  interest  and  do  honor  to  the 
speculative  spirit  which  has  given  birth  to  it.  It 
could  not  be  considered  a  legitimate  fruit  or 
authentic  manifestation  of  the  Christian  thought, 
for  the  triad  which  the  New  Testament  teaches 
is  a  religious,  historical,  economic  triad,  affirming 
absolutely  nothing  on  the  subject  of  a  trinitarian 
distinction  inherent  in  the  divine  essence.  Official 
theology  has  not  followed  this  method.  Instead 
of  proceeding  from  effect  to  cause  and  from  fact 
to  idea,  it  tries  to  comprehend  the  divine  essence 
while  taking  no  account  of  the  divine  work. 
Physical  and  psychological  analogies,  mystical 
attempts  or  speculative  fancies,  in  order  to  justify 
or  illustrate  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  corres- 
pond even  less  to  the  canon  which  demands  the 
christocentric  conception  of  Christian  truth.  That 
conception,  which  bases  all  dogmatic  affirmations 
touching  the  Trinity  upon  the  constitutive  ele- 
ments of  the  doctrine  of  salvation,  demands  not 
less  imperiously  that  we  shall  make  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  the  supreme  and  necessary  crown- 
ing point  of  the  dogmatic  structure.  As  a  com- 
plete expression  of  the  work  of  salvation,  in  its 
ideal  conception,  in  its  objective  accomplishment, 
and  in  its  inner  and  permanent  realization,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  unites  in  a  rich  and  lumi- 
nous expression,  in  a  concise  formula  appropriate 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  259 

to  the  needs  of  teaching  and  of  cult,  the  totality 
of  the  divine  factors  of  salvation  and  of  the  new 
life. 

I  have  tried  to  sketch  briefly  the  inner  organ- 
ism of  Protestant  dogmatics  conceived  and  con- 
structed from  a  christocentric  point  of  view.  If 
I  have  succeeded  in  showing  the  profound  coher- 
ence and  the  living  unity  of  a  dogmatic  system 
thus  constructed,  we  should  no  longer  attempt  to 
restore  the  edifice  of  a  theology  which  is  com- 
posed only  of  pieces  of  analogy,  heterogeneous 
elements  often  not  yielding  to  any  synthesis ;  we 
should  not  seek  further  to  reduce  dogmatics  to  a 
simple  aggregation  of  conceptions  drawn  from 
the  most  diverse  spheres  and  dressed  up  with 
certain  scriptural  colors ;  we  should  give  to  the 
doctrinal  construction  of  the  Protestant  church 
the  solid  and  broad  foundation  which  the  Gospel 
itself  assures  to  faith,  and  we  should  merely  trans- 
late into  precise  formulas  the  affirmations  of  the 
Christian  consciousness  and  reproduce  in  the  lan- 
guage of  science  the  inner  experience  which  binds 
and  conditions  all  the  Christian  convictions  in  the 
spirit  of  the  believer. 

III. 

However,  the  christocentric  point  of  view 
has  been  the  occasion  of  very  grave  objections, 


260  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

which  it  is  important  to  examine  seriously.  If 
we  can  refute  the  criticisms  which  are  directed 
against  this  classification  and  this  method,  we 
shall  have  established  more  substantially  at  the 
same  time  the  conclusions  which  we  have  tried 
to  state  and  justify. 

"The arrangement  proposed  by  the  representa- 
tives of   the  christocentric    method,"    someone 
tells  us,  "  is  perhaps  suitable  for  a  popular  ex- 
position of  the  Protestant  faith,  but  it  is  mani- 
festly scientifically  inadequate  ;  while  good  in  a 
catechism,  it  would  be  out  of  place  in  a  system 
of  dogmatics.  "     This  objection  is  expressed  only 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  certain  speculative 
theology  which   establishes  a  hierarchy  between 
the    superior    gnosis    of    the    thinker    and  the 
elementary  faith  of  the  simple  believer.     Now, 
we  reject  such  premises  in  the  name  of  the  Gospel 
and    of    the     Protestant    consciousness.     If  the 
preacher  and  the  catechist  are  required  to  make 
the  person  of  Christ  the  center  and  the  base  of 
their  preaching  and  their  teaching,  the  dogmati- 
cian  would  be  greatly  in  error  to  attempt  any  other 
course  and  apply  any  other  method.     Dogmatic 
theology,   like  the    sermon,    like    religious    in- 
struction, has  for  its  mission  the  exposition  of 
the  Christian  faith,  of  which  the  Gospel  is  at  once 
both  the  principle  and  the  object.    Between  these 
different    manners    of    announcing     and     com- 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  261 

municating  the  evangelical  truth  there  is  no  point 
of  difference  as  to  source  and  content ;  the  differ- 
ence pertains  only  to  form,  which  will  be  in  turn 
oratorical,  simple  didactic,  scientifically  rigorous, 
according  to  the  service  to  be  rendered  and  the 
needs  to  be  satisfied.  Protestant  dogmatics  could 
not  have  a  loftier  ambition  than  to  make  itself  the 
faithful  and  docile  interpreter  of  the  faith,  of  the 
simple  evangelical  faith,  of  the  faith  of  the  weak 
and  the  humble,  for  that  is  the  faith  which  brings 
strength  and  peace,  the  faith  which  regenerates 
and  saves,  the  faith  which  Jesus  demands  and  to 
which  he  promises  pardon  and  entrance  into 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  Every  attempt  to  seek 
beyond  that  faith  for  any  superior  truth  inac- 
cessible to  the  consciousness  of  the  believer,  at- 
tainable only  to  the  intelligence  of  the  "gnostic," 
would  be  a  dangerous  and  chimerical  enterprise, 
for  it  would  be  equivalent  to  the  admission  that 
the  Gospel  is  not  the  perfect  revelation,  and  that 
in  the  sphere  of  pure  religion  the  effort  of  philo- 
sophical thought  mounts  higher  than  that  of  piety 
and  prayer. 

But  our  adversaries  are  insistent.  While  deny- 
ing that  our  conception  of  dogmatics  has  the 
value  and  the  rigor  of  science,  they  do  not  admit 
that  they  thereby  depreciate  the  Gospel  or  uncrown 
Christianity.  On  the  contrary,  they  reproach  us 
with  lowering  dogmatics  to  the  level  of  a  mere 


262  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

religious  technique,  since  we  appear  to  break 
every  bond  which  attaches  it  to  philosophy,  and 
to  exile  the  science  of  faith  to  a  domain  outside 
of  all  contact  with  metaphysics  and  the  so-called 
profane  sciences.  Is  it  any  presumption  to  think 
that  we  have  already  refuted  this  objection  ? 
We  have  tried  to  show  above1  the  fundamental 
difference  as  well  as  the  indissoluble  solidarity 
which  obtains  between  dogmatics  and  philos- 
ophy. Dogmatics  participates  in  the  autono- 
my of  the  Christian  faith,  which  depends 
solely  upon  the  Gospel,  and  receives  its  positive 
content  and  its  guiding  principle  solely  from  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  Its  very  object 
assures  to  it  independence  of  the  philosophical 
sciences,  which  freedom  it  could  not  sacrifice  with- 
out denying  and  destroying  itself.  But  this 
sovereignty  within  the  limits  which  the  living 
material  of  its  work  traces  for  it  is  by  no  means 
hostility  or  systematic  neutrality  toward  philos- 
ophy. That  attitude  would  not  only  be  puerile 
and  dangerous,  it  would  also  be  impracticable. 
Even  if  indifference  to  philosophical  matters  were 
permissible  to  the  theologian,  it  would  still  be 
.impossible  for  him.  Our  religious  position,  there- 
fore our  theological  conception,  imposes  upon  us 
the  method  of  the  philosopher  which  implies  a 
determined  theory  of  knowledge  in  general  and  of 
1  Chap.  VI,  §  III. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  263 

religious  knowledge  in  particular,  and  that  theory 
in  turn  is  not  conceivable  or  capable  of  being 
tested  without  psychology,  logic,  and  metaphy- 
sics, which  correct  and  sustain  it. 

But,  it  is  insisted,  if  you  think  seriously  of 
this  metaphysics,  this  logic,  this  psychology,  all 
this  circle  of  disciplines  and  philosophical  ideas, 
why  refuse  their  assistance  ?  Why  should  we 
deprive  ourselves  of  the  aids  which  the  general 
consciousness  of  humanity  furnishes  to  the  preach- 
ing and  to  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel  ?  Why 
cast  this  slur  upon  natural  religion  and  theology  ? 
Is  it  legitimate  to  raise  an  unsurmountable  bar- 
rier between  the  revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ 
and  the  revelation  of  God  in  nature,  in  science, 
and  history  ?  To  isolate  the  Christ  from  the 
general  evolution  of  humanity— is  not  that  to  place 
him  outside  of  humanity  itself?  Is  that  not  to 
condemn  him  and  never  to  comprehend  him  ? 
And,  what  is  more  serious,  is  that  not  to  remove 
far  from  him  those  whom  he  might  win  ?  For, 
finally,  to  refuse  to  consolidate  the  world  and  the 
Gospel  is  to  destroy  all  Christian  apologetics, 
every  attempt  at  a  spiritual  propaganda  and  a 
conquest  of  those  outside  of  Christianity. 

We  will  try  to  unravel  this  tangled  and  some- 
what confused  mass  of  objections  and  criticisms 
which  are  directed  toward  us  from  all  sides. 

In  the  first  place  we  do  not  refuse  the  assist- 


264  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

ance  of  any  science  ;  far  from  it.  We  will  call  to 
our  aid  a  series  of  disciplines  which  we  cannot  do 
without  and  among  which  we  give  to  philosophy 
its  legitimate  and  necessary  share.1  But  the 
limitation  of  boundary  lines  is  a  question  of  prin- 
ciple concerning  which  any  ambiguity  is  not  per- 
missible ;  it  is  important  not  to  mistake  the  field 
which  belongs  to  each  science,  and  not  to  demand 
of  a  series  of  conceptions  or  a  method  of  work 
the  services  which  it  is  not  possible  or  capable  of 
rendering  to  us.  The  object  of  each  discipline 
determines  its  functions,  traces  its  limits,  and 
promulgates  its  laws.2  Applied  to  Protestant 
dogmatics,  this  elementary  rule  involves  all  the 
conclusions  which  we  have  tried  to  establish. 

The  criticism  that  we  separate  the  Christian 
revelation  from  the  religious  evolution  of  humani- 
ty needs  to  be  examined  very  closely.  It  con- 
tains an  accusation  which  we  vigorously  repel 
and  a  criticism  which  we  shall  always  endeavor 
to  merit.  In  formulating  the  religious  judgment 
which  the  activity  emanating  from  Christ  sug- 
gests to  our  consciousness  ;  in  greeting  in  the 
person  and  work  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  per- 
fect manifestation  of  the  holiness  and  the  love  of 
God  ;  in  making  this  revelation  the  foundation  of 
our  religious  certitude  and  of  our  Christian  life, 
we  do  not  intend  to  put  forth  a  theory  as  to  the 

'  See  Chap.  VI.,  §  III.  •  See  Chap.  Ill,  §111. 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  265 

means  at  the  disposal  of  Providence  for  commu- 
nicating this  divine  principle  to  the  light  of 
humanity ;  we  do  not  try  to  explain  how  this  new 
factor  has  been  able  to  enter  into  the  plan  of  his- 
tory. It  suffices  for  us  to  affirm  two  things: 
first,  humanity  has  been  divinely  prepared  and 
organized  so  that  the  Son  of  man  has  been  able 
to  become  a  part  of  it  really  and  fully ;  second, 
the  Savior  has  been  truly  a  gift  of  God,  an  act  of 
grace  from  above,  a  new  beginning  in  history. 
That  is  to  say  that  the  appearance  of  "  Him  who 
was  to  come"  has  not  taken  place  in  an  abrupt 
and  magical  manner  in  the  life  of  humanity;1 
that  it  came  about  "in  the  fulness  of  time  ;"  that 
this  accomplishment  has  been  preceded  by  a 
period  of  preparation  conducted  according  to  a 
plan  which  divine  wisdom  has  conceived  and  in- 
finite love  has  realized ;  but  that  is  to  say  also 
that  this  evolution  of  which  the  cross  of  Calvary 
is  the  luminous  and  benign  summit  has  not  been 
a  fatal  movement,  ordered  either  by  the  imma- 
nent necessity  of  an  abstract  dialectic  or  by  the 
inflexible  tyranny  of  a  blind  nature.  This  evolu- 
tion has  been  an  education,  a  moral  work,  a 
drama  inspired  by  a  sovereign  Will,  but  with  the 
collaboration  of  actors  who  have  had  a  role  to 
play  and  who  have  been  mere  instruments  of  the 
divine  Will.  Consequently,  history  must  search 
'See  Chap.  VI,  §111. 


266  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

for  the  conditions  in  which  the  greatest  event  in 
the  life  of  humanity  has  been  accomplished ;  but 
if  the  historian  is  a  Christian,  he  will  be  con- 
strained to  admit  the  appearance,  in  the  life  and 
work  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  a  "new  principle,  graft- 
ing itself  upon  that  which  existed,  bending  it  to 
new  ends."1 

How  could  this  confession  of  ignorance,  in- 
spired by  an  affirmation  of  faith,  affect  or  injure 
the  universality  of  Christianity,  or  shake  the 
foundations  upon  which  our  religious  life  and  our 
Christian  theology  rest  ?  Without  doubt  we  are 
through  with  the  processes  of  a  popular  apologet- 
ics which  is  mistaken  as  to  the  means  at  its  dispo- 
sal, and  which,  in  the  most  favorable  hypothesis, 
could  appear  plausible  only  to  those  spirits 
already  convinced  ;  doubtless  also  we  are  through 
with  the  fiction  which  has  been  called  "natural 
religion,"  and  which  is  nothing  other  than  the 
"  caput  mortuum  of  the  ancient  philosophical  tra- 
dition today  exhausted"2  or  a  pale  abstraction 
drawn  from  the  positive  and  historical  religions; 
but  if  we  are  resolved  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of 
old  and  useless  systems,  it  is  only  because  we 
mean  to  free  ourselves  for  the  task  which  the 
Gospel  imposes  upon  us.  The  Christian  faith 
would  abdicate  if  it  should  neglect  to  be  mis- 
sionary and  conquering,  but  it  must  know  in 

'Ph.  Bridel.  "Sabatier. 


PR  O  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  26  ^ 

what  manner  it  can  establish  the  religious  cer- 
titude and  cause  others  to  attain  it.  That  is  the 
gnly  way  of  establishing  an  apologetics  worthy 
of  the  name. 

The  original  defect  of  popular  apologetics  is 
also  the  error  committed  by  the  leaders  of  the 
exact  and  natural  sciences.  In  both  cases  one 
lives  in  the  illusion  that  the  supreme,  if  not 
unique,  form  of  certitude  is  that  which  is  ac- 
quired by  a  theoretical  knowledge,  by  objective 
research  which  aspires  to  reach  the  nexus  rerum 
and  the  laws  of  being.  One  imagines  that  to 
assure  the  scientific  character,  and,  therefore, 
universality  and  authority,  of  the  Christian  truth, 
it  is  indispensable  that  it  shall  be  justified  at  the 
bar  of  theoretical  reason.  Now,  natural  and  me- 
chanical philosophy  declares  this  undertaking  to 
be  impossible,  and,  seeing  no  other  way  of  justi- 
fying the  pretensions  of  Christianity,  it  labels  it 
"illusionism,"  and  passes  on  to  some  other  ques- 
tion. The  apologists,  dominated  by  the  intel- 
lectualism  to  which  their  adversaries  bow,  have 
recourse  to  the  arguments  furnished  by  philoso- 
phy or  by  natural  theology,  and  try  to  give  to 
religious  truth  a  theoretical  foundation.  They 
concede  willingly  that  the  Christian  faith  carries 
us  into  the  domain  of  realities  perceived  by  the 
conscience,  but  these  realities  do  not  seem  to 
them  guaranteed  and  unassailable  only  when  they 


268  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

have  assured  their  solidity  by  establishing  them 
upon  the  foundation  of  the  so-called  primordial, 
universal  truths  accessible  to  the  faculties  of  the 
natural  man.  Hence  the  apologists  attempt  to 
establish  first  that  which  they  call  the  necessary 
presupposition  of  the  Gospel ;  and,  their  sub- 
structure being  well  founded,  they  merrily  pro- 
ceed to  build  the  edifice  of  their  Christian  system. 

Very  different  is  the  procedure  of  the  theolo- 
gians who,  following  the  principles  of  Luther,  of 
Schleiermacher,  and  of  Vinet,  or  rather  inspired 
by  the  word  and  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  establish  the  character  sui  generis  of 
religious  certitude,  the  practical  and  personal 
function  of  the  subject,  the  inner  and  spontane- 
ous determination  of  the  life  of  the  being  who 
knows,  a  moral  act  which  implies  a  state  of  the 
soul  produced  by  the  object  of  the  knowledge. 
A  certitude  thus  acquired  could  not  be  increased 
by  the  intellectual  operations  which  have  no 
hold  upon  the  order  to  which  the  realities  at- 
tained and  possessed  by  this  consciousness  be- 
long. What  shall  I  say?  These  intellectual 
operations  compromise  and  warp  faith  and  trans- 
port it  into  a  sphere  which  it  does  not  belong  to 
and  in  which  it  perishes. 

Is  it  necessary  to  give  some  examples  of  the 
difference  between  these  two  points  of  view  and 
methods  ? 


PRO  TEST  ANT  DOGMA  TICS  269 

Traditional  theology  attempts  to  determine 
first  the  idea  of  God  conceived  as  the  absolute 
personality,  and  to  prove  the  existence  of  the 
supreme  Being  by  help  of  a  series  of  arguments 
whose  weakness  it  sometimes  feels  and  admits, 
but  to  which  it  attributes  a  pedagogic  value,  pre- 
paring and  predisposing  spirits  to  accept  the  tes- 
timony of  supernatural  revelation.  From  the 
general  knowledge  of  God  the  religious  subject 
is  invited  to  raise  himself  to  the  knowledge  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  only  saving  knowledge, 
produced  by  the  supreme  and  ultimate  revela- 
tion. Each  attribute,  each  work  of  God,  is  sus- 
ceptible of  being  known  and  formulated — in  an 
approximate  manner,  to  be  sure,  but  precise  and 
exact  in  their  general  extent.  The  notion  of  the 
personality  of  God  involves  a  positive  definition 
of  the  intra-divine  life,  and  affirms  a  transcen- 
dental truth  as  to  the  mode  of  existence  of  the 
Absolute  Being.  The  attributes  of  the  eternity  or 
the  omnipotence  of  God  are  doubtless  only  faint 
stammerings  concerning  his  entire  perfections, 
but  they  imply  an  objective  revelation  as  to  the 
relationship  of  God  to  space  and  time.  Like- 
wise, the  doctrine  of  creation,  according  to 
which  beings  have  been  derived  from  nothing- 
ness by  a  free  act  of  the  sovereign  Will,  is 
an  attempt  to  determine  the  method  of  the  origin 
of  the  world.  The  doctrine  of  Providence  com- 


270  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

prises  in  like  manner  a  series  of  problems  the 
solution  of  which  the  theologian  is  expected  to 
seek  out.  What  is  the  relation  between  the  first 
cause  and  secondary  causes  ?  Is  God  the  causa 
efficiens  or  the  causa  deficiens  of  evil  ?  How  can 
the  free  will  of  a  personal  God  be  reconciled 
with  the  orderly  play  of  the  forces  and  laws  of 
nature?  The  doctrine  of  sin,  christology,  the 
doctrine  of  redemption,  have  raised  a  cloud  of 
similar  questions  which  the  dogmatician  who 
respects  himself  is  obliged  to  answer.  Each  of 
these  answers,  to  be  admitted,  must  be  substanti- 
ated by  its  intrinsic,  objective  value,  independent 
of  the  inner  disposition  of  the  subject ;  each  of 
these  answers  must  seek  to  indicate  and  charac- 
terize the  objective  and  immanent  realities  of  the 
phenomena  or  persons  whose  essence  and  rela- 
tions theology  tries,  as  far  as  possible,  to  pene- 
trate and  define.  To  be  sure,  the  truths  acquired 
by  the  labor  of  the  dogmatician  do  not  remain  in 
a  state  of  cold  and  bare  doctrines  in  the  soul  of 
the  believer ;  they  take  life,  they  gain  a  force 
and  a  fervor  which  they  could  not  have  in  pure 
knowledge;  they  are  transformed  into  rules  of 
conduct,  into  determinations  of  the  will,  into 
subjective  experiences ;  but,  originally,  they  ex- 
isted under  the  form  of  natural  or  supernatural 
revelations,  which  it  has  been  necessary  first  to 
recognize  in  order  to  prove  later.  Such  is  the 


PROTESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2  7 1 

course  pursued  by  traditional  dogmatics,  which 
inspires  and  dominates  in  its  turn  popular  apolo- 
getics ;  such  is  the  invariable  procedure  of  the 
ancient  doctors  who  exhausted  themselves  in 
painful  and  laborious  attempts  to  ascend  to  inac- 
cessible summits.  Every  time  they  reached  a 
new  slope  they  saw  the  rock  that  they  had 
rolled  to  the  top  by  a  thousand  efforts  escape 
from  their  bruised  arms,  and  they  exclaimed 
with  indomitable  courage:  "Suppose  we  try 
again ! " 

As  for  us,  we  dare  to  believe  that  we  ought 
not  to  try  again.  Not  that  we  renounce  in  a 
cowardly  manner  the  research  after  truth  or  that 
we  declare  that  dogmatics  pursues  an  illusory 
and  sterile  task,  but  we  persist  in  thinking  that 
the  task  of  evangelical  dogmatics  is  elsewhere, 
and  that,  by  insisting  on  making  moral  and  re- 
ligious truths  the  material  of  a  theoretical  inquiry, 
Protestant  theology  belies  its  nature,  renounces 
its  mission,  and  compromises  its  dignity  and  its 
honor. 

We  believe,  in  a  word,  that  religious  certitude, 
which  plunges  its  roots  down  to  the  depths  of 
consciousness,  is  of  another  order  than  that  of 
theoretical  and  objective  certitude ;  it  is  not  less 
than  that,  it  is  different ;  the  difference  between 
the  two  is  not  one  of  degree,  but  of  kind.  The 
Christian  certainty  is  faith  produced  in  the  soul 


272  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

by  the  experience  of  a  supreme  and  divine  reality 
whose  existence  we  need  not  first  establish  and 
later  test  the  effects,  since  it  reveals  itself  im- 
mediately to  our  consciousness  by  its  salutary 
and  benign  power.  That  reality,  victorious  over 
the  world  and  over  ourselves,  is  Jesus  Christ,  the 
unique  and  unshakable  foundation  established 
by  eternal  love  in  the  center  of  history  and  in 
the  heart  of  our  life,  the  foundation  upon  which 
our  trust  and  our  hope,  our  strength  and  our  joy, 
forever  rest.  Does  implacable  nature  threaten 
to  engulf  us  in  a  bottomless  pit  ?  Would  the  still 
more  tragic  and  most  formidable  power  of  sin 
crush  us  beneath  the  weight  of  remorse  and 
shame  ?  We  raise  our  eyes  to  Christ,  the  in- 
violable token  of  a  love  stronger  than  death  and 
evil,  and  by  that  look  of  faith  we  perceive  the 
Sun  which  bears  healing  and  life  in  its  rays. 
Thus, because  Christ  is  forme  a  source  of  life,  he 
is  also  a  center  of  light.  Religious  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ,  I  mean  to  say  the  personal  experi- 
ence of  his  love  and  his  holiness,  gives  me  re- 
ligious knowledge  of  God,  of  myself,  and  of  the 
world.  This  knowledge  is  at  once  a  gift  of  the 
grace  of  God  and  a  task  imposed  upon  the  effort 
of  the  Christian;  it  is  the  supreme  end  of  our 
moral  and  religious  life,  into  which  the  Christ 
must  enter,  grow,  and  rule. 

There  resides  the  decisive  justification  of  the 


PRO  TESTANT  DOGMA  TICS  2  7  3 

christocentric  method  in  theology,  for  the  spirit 
and  the  life  of  the  Christian  and  the  content  of 
his  faith  are  thus  the  object  of  evangelical  and 
Protestant  dogmatics.  To  make  comprehensible 
in  what  consist  the  true  and  immovable  founda- 
tion of  Christian  certitude ;  to  describe  the  inner 
nature,  the  distinctive  characters,  and  the  divinely 
traced  lines  of  this  inner  and  experimental  certi- 
tude ;  to  develop  and  formulate  scientifically  that 
which  is  involved  in  and  presupposed  by  this  ex- 
perience, which  is  a  new  creation  (2  Cor.  5:17)  — 
that  is  our  task.  In  truth,  it  is  serious  enough,  rich 
enough,  beautiful  enough  to  cause  us  to  renounce 
without  regret  the  tricks  of  theoretical  reason 
and  the  reveries  of  mystical  and  speculative  fan- 
tasy. It  is  also  strong  enough  and  likewise  sure 
enough  to  establish  a  scrupulous  and  decisive 
apologetics  and  not  to  be  disconcerted  by  the 
everlasting  reproaches  of  inconsistency,  dualism, 
and  even  duplicity,  which  its  adversaries  on  all 
sides  direct  against  it. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  apologetics  whose 
direction  and  general  inspiration  we  have  just  in- 
dicated above  should  seek  its  center  of  gravity 
where  dogmatics  finds  its  own,  in  the  person  and 
work  of  Jesus  Christ.  To  proclaim,  to  show  to 
souls  the  living  and  true  Christ,  the  Christ  of  the 
gospels,  either  to  satisfy  the  need  of  salvation 
or  to  awaken  it  in  consciences  open  to  impressions 


274  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO 

from  the  moral  world  —  such  is  the  chief  task  of 
apologetics,  whose  work,  offensive  and  defensive, 
is  invariably  dominated  by  the  sovereign  prin- 
ciple, Jesus  Christ  placed  in  the  presence  of  the 
human  spirit. 

If,  finally,  we  are  accused  of  cutting  the  human 
being  in  two,  of  proclaiming  the  eternal  divorce 
between  theoretical  reason  and  practical  reason, 
of  establishing  an  irreducible  opposition  between 
the  God  of  nature  and  the  God  of  our  conscious- 
ness, we  reply  that  we  believe  with  all  the  power 
of  our  soul  in  the  higher  synthesis  of  these  two 
worlds ;  but  if  we  believe  it,  it  is  precisely  by 
virtue  of  an  act  of  faith  acquired  in  the  school  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ.  We  bow  with  gratitude 
before  every  indication  which  announces  or  an- 
ticipates the  mysterious  and  unalterable  relation- 
ship which  exists  between  the  order  of  the  first 
creation  and  the  sphere  of  the  icaivi)  trio-is1  re- 
vealed in  Jesus  Christ ;  we  rejoice  in  the  pro- 
phetic gleams  from  below  which  tend  to  explain 
the  antinomies  reigning  in  the  feeling,  thinking, 
willing  being ;  but  we  remember  that  we  are 
called  to  walk  by  faith,  without  sight,  and  against 
sight.  It  is  precisely  because  we  wish  to  believe 
without  seeing  that  in  the  name  of  our  God  we 
carry  on  our  researches  in  the  world  of  moral  and 
religious  consciousness  and  that  we  demand  of 

1  New  Creation. 


PROTESTANT  DOGMATICS  275 

the  naturalist  or  the  historian  that  he  shall  not 
injure  himself  by  any  conscious  self-deception. 
Henceforth,  we  rise  by  faith  above  the  dualism 
with  which  they  struggle  who  ignore  the  Gospel ; 
in  the  light  of  the  history  of  the  Crucified,  who  has 
become  the  Lord  of  glory,  we  affirm  that  nature 
ends  in  spirit  and  that  the  supreme  aim  of 
spirit  is  the  Kingdom  of  our  Father  who  is  in 
Heaven. 

The  reader  who  has  had  the  patience  to  follow 
us  will  be  convinced,  I  trust,  that  Protestant  dog- 
matics, an  introduction  to  which  we  have  sketched, 
proposes  for  itself  a  work  essentially  positive, 
obedient  to  the  imperishable  teachings  of  the 
Gospel,  faithful  to  the  original  inspiration  and  the 
religious  principle  of  the  Reformation,  conform- 
ing to  the  needs  and  interests  of  the  church 
which  hopes  to  speak  a  language  intelligible  to 
the  present  generation. 

I  have  traced  a  program  only;  I  believe  it  is 
practicable  ;  it  is  already  on  the  way  to  progres- 
sive realization.  Shall  it  be  given  me  to  have 
some  part  in  it  ?  I  know  not ;  that  will  depend 
upon  the  strength  God  may  vouchsafe  to  me, 
and  the  welcome  accorded  to  this  Introduction. 


